TUMULTES: Icy & Sot, Liu Bolin, Robert Montgomery, Charles Pétillon, Rero, Saype - Paris

The Iranian brothers Icy And Sot blend in their work the testimony of their own migration and exile in the USA with current climate change and environmental issues. Through Tumultes, the duo of committed artists presents videos, photographs as well as an installation highlighting the climate emergency and the multiple imprints left by humans on nature.

It is then a picture of our contemporary world with all its flaws, breakdowns and tragedies that paint the artists. However Icy and Sot are never guilty of resignation or fatalism. Their work is beaming with hope and resilience. The destiny of these two artists is already in itself one reason not to despair of the world, for Icy and Sot demonstrate that talent and perseverance sometimes have the power to overcome the trials of life.

ICY (Saman, born in 1985) and SOT (Sasan, born in 1991) grew up in Tabriz in northern Iran. Their work has been shown in major institutions such as the Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art in Munich, the Southampton Arts Center in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Calais, France, the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum in Mesa, USA, the Lancaster Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, USA, the NUART Festival in Norway, and the Modern, Contemporary and Street Art Museum in Amsterdam, among other places. They live in New York.

British artist Robert Montgomery is interested in “what it feels like on the inside to live in Late-Capitalism”. Often poetic, many of his works are displayed outdoors in a variety of mediums: posters, LED signs, woodwork set on fire in the context of performances. In his studio, he turns to painting, watercolor or wood carving. Tinted with melancholy, his words are sometimes charged with a sense of existential doom. Sometimes also beaming with hope. Ecology, war, apathy, alienation are some of his recurrent themes, with this underlying idea that “art can be transformative”. The guest of honor at COP26, invites us to preserve the Earth and to rediscover the link that unites us to the world.

Robert Montgomery was born in Chapelhall, Scotland, in 1972. He was selected to represent the United Kingdom at the Lyon Biennale of contemporary art (France) in 2011, the Kochi Biennale (India) in 2012, and the Yinchuan Biennale (China) in 2016. He has produced large-scale light installations in the public space in various European cities like Berlin, London, Paris, Athens, and more. His work has been presented at the Aspen Art Museum (USA), the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center (USA), or the Cer Modern Museum (Ankara, Turkey). His works are in the permanent collections of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and the Albright Knox Museum (USA). He lives in London.

Self-taught, Saype is known today for his paintings on grass, made with eco-responsible paint. Certainly one of the most publicized artists in 2019, he was notably named by the famous magazine Forbes as one of the thirty most influential personalities under the age of thirty in the world having marked the universe of arts and culture. 

The artist who distinguishes himself by his monumental interventions on the ground on thousands of square meters of grass, earth or sand, which reveal all their magnitude seen from the sky. With his works, ephemeral by nature, a combination between street-art and land-art, he questions our societies on their excesses while calling for more solidarity.

Guillaume Legros alias Saype, passionate about philosophical and existential questions, explores issues around the human and nature. This approach leads to the creation of scenes in the most unexpected places with eco-responsible and biodegradable paint on grass.

A fervent optimist, the land artist put his art at the service of humanity by launching the pharaonic project Beyond Walls in 2019, to symbolically create the largest human chain in the world, calling for a global movement to break down the walls that separate humans to emphasize the importance of our place on earth.