Closing: “Ballet Mécanique” at Richard Taittinger Gallery
Taking artist Fernand Léger 1924 Dadaist film Ballet Mécanique as both its title and point of departure, this exhibition explores the modernist master’s concerns about the mechanized world’s impact on the roaring ’20s through the work of seven contemporary artists. Belgian artist Wim Delvoye exquisitely transforms a gothic cathedral into an industrial bulldozer; French sculptor Théo Mercier depicts to titans of business in a fur-covered embrace in his surreal sculpture La bête à deux dos (The best with two backs); and American artist Tom Sachs wood-burned piece The Hours of Devotions heartbreakingly shows a wealthy fox beating a subjugated rabbit – a scene of oppression that goes hand-in-hand with an over-industrialized world.