Born in 1984 at Paris, France.

Lives and works between Mexico and Paris.

Solo Exhibitions (Selection)

2024
  • Tension Intension, Galería Casado Santapau, Madrid.
2023
  • Bad Timing, Villa Medici, Roma.
  • GUT CITY PUNCH, French Pavillon, Prague Quadriennal 2023, Czech Republic
2022
  • OUTREMONDE – The Sleeping Chapter, Conciergerie de Paris.
  • OUTREMONDE – dream hunters, LUMA Westbau, Zürich.
2021
  • Pre-Hispanic Display, Proyectos Monclova, Mexico DF.
  • Nécrocéan, Le Portique Centre Régional d’Art contemporain du Havre, France.Pre-Hispanic Display, Proyectos Monclova, Mexico DF.
  • OUTREMONDE, Collection Lambert en Avignon X Festival d’Avignon.
  • The Ballad of Disaster, Proyectos Monclova, Mexico DF.
2020
  • Silent Spring , Mor Charpentier Gallery, Paris.
2019
  • Knock, knock… who’s in the pet store? Galerie Michael Fuchs, Berlin.
  • Ecrans infinis, Cabinets de curiosités,Fonds Hélène et Edouard Leclerc, Landerneau, France.
  • Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris, France.
  • Museo de Artes Decorativas, Biennale de La Habana, Cuba.
  • Galeria Casado Santapau, Madrid, Spain./li>
  • Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
2017
  • The Great War Wall, Museo El Eco, Mexico.
  • Delego Fantasma, Galeria Marso, Mexico.
  • Pièces rapportées, Musée de l’homme, Paris, France.
  • Panorama zéro, Galerie Bugada & Cargnel, Paris, France.
2016
  • The Thrill Is Gone, [mac] – Musée d’art contemporain, Marseille, France.
2015
  • Nowhere Bodies, The Cabin, Los Angeles, USA.<
  • Craft Thoughts Wood Songs, Casa Maauad, Mexico.
  • Ghosts and Gods, Canepaneri, Milan, Italy.
2014
  • Je ne regrette rien, Prix Marcel Duchamp, Fiac, Paris, France.
2013
  • Hier ne meurt jamais, Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris, France.
  • Droma. Studio Show, Villa Médicis, Rome, Italy.
  • Sun Fun Gun, Les Mouettes, Vevey, Switzerland.
  • Le Grand Mess, le lieu unique, Nantes, France.
2012
  • Book Memory, Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris, France.
  • Desperanza, Tri Postal, Lille, France.
2011
  • Le Musée des arts seconds, Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris, France.
2010
  • Green with Anger, Square du Temple, Paris, France.
  • Hunted Haunted / Bête et sauvage, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris, France.
2009
  • Nature morte et enterrée, Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris, France.
  • Green with Anger, Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris, France.
  • Oil Now, Envoy Gallery, New York, USA.

Group Exhibitions (Selection)

2022
  • Genius Loci, August Perret Apartment, Paris.
  • Artists, Heritage and the Museum, curated by Marta Jecu and Sofia Marçal and with the support of Casado Santapau Gallery, Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, Lisboa.
2021
  • EX-AFRICA (cur. : Philippe Dagen), Musée du Quai Branly, Paris.
2019
  • Fondation Leclerc, Landerneau, France.
  • Phantom Limb,Jameel Arts Center, Dubaï.
2019
  • Arquitecturas Pintadas. Fundaçao Eugenio Almeida. Évora. Portugal.
  • Medio siglo que cont[arte]. CCCC. Valencia, Spain.
  • La hora del Vermut. Palacio de los Condes de Alpuente. Valencia, Spain.
2018
  • Hybrides, le corps en question, Palacio Bellas Artes, Mexico City.
  • Dans l’atelier, FRAC Bretagne.
  • Hello world, Museum Hamburger Bahnhoff, Berlin, Germany.
  • Accrochages, Galerie Michael Fuchs, Berlin, Germany.
2017
  • Mementos: Artists’ Souvenirs, Artefacts, and other Curiosities, Art Brussels, Tour et Taxis, Bruxelles.
2016
  • The Silent Echo, Musée du site archéologique de Baalbek, Baalbek, Liban -Dialogue – Open Gallery, Galeria Marso, Mexico.
  • Le Temps de l’audace et de l’engagement – De leur temps (5), Institut d’art contemporain.
  • Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes (IAC), France.
  • Future Landscape(s), Galerie Laurence Bernard, Genève, Suisse.
2015
  • 100 %, Galerie des multiples – GDM, Paris, France.
  • Chercher le garçon, Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne (MAC VAL), Vitry-sur-Seine, France.
  • Sinthome, Richard Taittinger Gallery, New York, USA.
2014
  • Exposition Prix Marcel Duchamp, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany.
  • Exposition Prix Marcel Duchamp, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, France -La Part animale, Galerie Sophie Scheidecker, Paris, France.
  • Mythomania, Le 106, Rouen.
  • Ghost Track, Institut Français, Palerme, Italy.
2013
  • Le Surréalisme et l’objet, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou, París, France.
  • Courtesy, Flare, Los Angeles.
  • Existe T-Île, Lac Léman, France.
  • Salon Montrouge, Montrouge, France.
  • Un week-end singulier, Le lieu unique, Nantes, Fr
  • The French Haunted House, Song Eun Art Space, Séoul, Corea.
2011
  • My Paris – Collection Antoine de Galbert, Me Collectors room, Berlin, Germany.
  • La Fabrique Sonore, Domaine Pommery, Reims, France.
  • Rituels, Fondation Ricard, Paris, France.
  • Tous Cannibales, La maison rouge, Paris, France.
  • L’insoutenable légèreté de l’être, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris, France.
2010
  • Archichaos, Rove Project, London.
  • Voyage dans ma tête, La maison rouge, Paris, France.
  • Dynasty, Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris & Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France.
  • Le beau est un moment du laid, Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris, France.
  • Black Mirror, Arsenic, Lausanne, Switzerland.
2009
  • Survival Kit, Florence, Italy.
  • Salon de Montrouge, Montrouge, France.
  • Survival Kit, Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Riga, Lettonie.
2008
  • Bucket, National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow.
  • It’s a Pity that Pyramids Are Not Chinese, Envoy Gallery, New York, USA.
  • From M to ZZZ, Galerie Langhans, Prague, Czchech Republic.
  • Put a Sugar in My Bowl, Terence Kohís Gallery, New York, USA.
  • A Journey in the Center of Uranus, Canada Gallery, New York, USA.
2007
  • Consequence and Proposal, Biennial of Young Artists, Estonian Institute, Tallinn, Estonie.
  • Consequence and Proposal, Riga, Lettonie.

Performances

2022
  • OUTREMONDE – The Sleeping Chapter, Conciergerie de Paris.
  • Affordable Solution For Better Living · Théo Mercier / Steven Michel, Théâtre National de Bretagne, France.
  • Big Sisters · Théo Mercier / Steven Michel, Théâtre National de Bretagne, France.
2019
  • Maison de la Culture d’Amiens, Amiens, France.
  • Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, Lausanne, Suisse.
  • Centquatre, Paris, France.
  • Le Maillon, Strasbourg.
  • Latitudes Contemporaines, Lille, France.
2018
  • Festival Pronomades, Saint-Gaudens, France.
  • Dampfzentrale, Berne, Switzerland.
  • Bonlieu Scene nationale Annecy, Annecy, France.
  • La Villette, Paris, France.
  • Maison de la Musique de Nanterre, Nanterre, France.
  • Charleroi danse, Palais des Beaux Arts, Bruxelles, Belgium.
  • Humain trop Humain – CDN Montpellier, Montpellier, France.
  • La Criée Scène nationale de Marseille.
  • Affordable Solution for Better Living.
  • Spectacle créé le 3 mai 2018 à Bonlieu Scène nationale Annecy.
  • Bonlieu Scène nationale Annecy, Annecy, France.
  • La Bâtie-Festival de Genève, Suisse.
  • La Criée – Théâtre national de Marseille, France.
  • Nanterre-Amandiers – Nanterre.
  • Usine C, Actoral Montréal, Canada.
  • Actoral Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada.
  • The Invisible Dog Art Center, New York, USA.
  • La Ménagerie de Verre, Paris, France.
2017
  • La fille du Collectionneur, CDN Nanterre-Amandiers.
  • CDN Nanterre-Amandiers.
  • Bonlieu Scène nationale Annecy.
  • Humain trop Humain – CDN Montpellier, Montpellier, France.
  • Festival d’Aurillac, Aurillac, France.
  • Vooruit Center, Gand, Belgium.
  • Ménagerie de Verre, Paris, France.
2016
  • Usine C, Actoral Montréal, Montréal, Canada.
  • La Bâtie-Festival de Genève, Switzerland.
  • Ménagerie de Verre, Paris, France (création).
2014
  • Nanterre-Amandiers, Nanterre, France.
  • Maison des Arts de Créteil, Créteil, France (création).

Casado_Santapau presents “Tension Intension” second solo exhibition by Théo Mercier in the gallery.

As a true autodidact, Théo Mercier has claimed since his beginnings a great formal freedom, working to build the mechanisms of a history of art and objects in which he builds again harmonious contradictions similar to contemporary apocryphal stories. Mercier imposes paradox, strangeness and humor as a plastic point of view. The result is an overflowing work, a cosmogony populated by dystopian myths, iconoclastic sculptures and exquisite corpses in which images and clichés, dominant and dominated discourses, fantasies, unconscious and collective representations confront each other in an orderly cacophony.

The exhibition presents sculptures in precarious balances, games of movement, risks and traps. These are newly created works and compositions by Théo, based on materials and objects that have been part of his work for many years: natural stone, terracotta, carved stone. Two new techniques are also included: bronze and rope.

With bronze, a tension is presented between the soft and the solid that speaks of the sedimentation and fossilization of humanity in matter, but also of the relationship of strength and resistance between human beings and their environment, of the inevitable questions of survival, transformation, adaptation and eradication that are linked to human activities, and perhaps also to global warming.

With the rope technique, he creates tension between seemingly eclectic objects. It also makes it possible to create a network of illusions, a system of cause and effect, a mysterious mechanism. Everything could be a representation or simply an allegory of the precarious and sometimes senseless balance of things in the world.

Overall, the sculptures in the exhibition have a very theatrical feel, transforming the gallery into a dynamic space where all the works seem to play and respond to each other. This must be understood in the context of Théo’s work as a stage director.

Taking the world and his travels as the raw material of his work, Théo Mercier conducts a reflection at the crossroads of anthropology, geopolitics and tourism. Between choreographed stagings and explorations of raw material, he combines a practice of creator and collector, through which he establishes a rich exchange between past, present and future, life and death, animate and inanimate, true and false, artisanal and industrial, profane and sacred, real and fiction. Most of Théo Mercier’s pieces are the result of a work of anthropomorphization of objects -from findings, assemblages, precarious stacking or grafting- which he almost always creates in series, constituting true communities.

Born in Paris in 1984, Théo Mercier currently lives and works between Paris, Marseille (France) and Mexico City. Claiming formal freedom, Mercier sets out to deconstruct the mechanisms of history, objects and representations, in which he finds harmonious contradictions.

Explorer, collector, curator and artist, he leads a reflection situated at the crossroads of anthropology, geopolitics, tourism and landscape. Resident at Villa Medici in 2013 and nominated for the Marcel-Duchamp Prize in 2014, Théo Mercier has also won the Silver Lion at the 2019 Venice Biennale for Dance with Steven Michel, the Art of Change 21 Prize and the Jury Prize for the French Pavilion at the 2023 Prague Quadrennial with Céline Peychet. In 2022, he was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.

As a stage director, his shows have been presented at Nanterre-Amandiers, the Festival d’Automne, La Villette, the Ménagerie de verre and the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the Festival d’Avignon, the Theater Spektakel (Zurich), Vidy (Lausanne), La Bâtie (Geneva), Usine C (Montreal), The Invisible Dog Art Center (New York), the Festival Actoral (Marseille), the Vooroit Art Center (Ghent) and the Short Theater (Rome), among others.

Théo Mercier has had solo exhibitions at Villa Médicis, Rome (2023); Prague Quadrennial, Prague (2023); Conciergerie, Paris (2022); the Luma Westbau, Zurich (2022); Collection Lambert, Avignon (2021); Le Portique, Le Havre (2021); the XIII Biennial of Havana, Cuba (2019); Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris (2019); Museo El Eco, Mexico City (2017); Musée de l’Homme, Paris (2017); Musée d’art Contemporain, Marseille (2016); Lieu Unique, Nantes (2013); and Tri Postal, Lille (2012), among others.

He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions at international institutions such as Le Parvis, Tarbes (2022); Musée de la Vieille Charité, Marseille (2022); Pouchkine Museum, Moscow (2021); West Bund Museum, Shanghai (2021); Musée du Quai Branly, Paris (2021); Jameel Arts Center, Dubai (2019); Fonds Hélène et Edouard Leclerc, Landerneau (2019); Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2018); Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City (2018); FRAC Bretagne, Rennes (2018); Museum of the Archaeological Site of Baalbek, Lebanon (2016); MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (2015); and Centre Pompidou, Paris (2013).