'The Operation' (2011), by Annette Messager. MARC DOMAGE/ANNETTE MESSAGER/MARIAN GOODMAN GALLERY
It's more than just an exhibition. It's an invasion. Annette Messager, at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris, is leading the charge with her procession of birds, crows or blackbirds, giant snails and small or larger monsters. They perch on mantelpieces and furniture, climb up the walls and hang from black threads.
They are everywhere, from the ground floor to the second floor: in spaces usually reserved for exhibitions, in the lavishly furnished and decorated salons of the Hôtel de Guénégaud and Hôtel de Mongelas, among the permanent collections, the curiosity cabinets, the corners and even the staircase. According to the map, that amounts to a total of 19 locations for nearly 80 works.
It comes as no surprise that Messager feels at home with this exercise. On one hand, her fantastical and symbolic menagerie naturally encounters the real and the taxidermied, along with paintings of hunters and dogs depicted with strict naturalism. On the other hand, the artist has long demonstrated her ability to make use of both historic architecture and decor as well as the white, geometric spaces of contemporary art museums. That she enjoys settling in here is obvious – and that pleasure is contagious, with the tour marked by surprises and incongruities.
