Palais de Tokyo

“Praesentia” (a polysemous title evoking presence, power, and protection) offers a generous unfolding of Myriam Mihindou’s work over the last twenty years, including new productions. The exhibition is particularly interested in the way in which the artist assumes the spiritual and therapeutic, as well as the social and political functions of art, through gestures, forms, and materials.

Some dominant narratives are thus re-read by their margins, making visible bodies, voices, practices, and imaginaries that have long been neglected or minoritised. This exhibition is co-conceived and co-produced with the CRAC Occitanie in Sète, to ensure that the works are visible over a longer period of time, and that they are accessible to a wide range of audiences.

Myriam Mihindou is a multidisciplinary artist whose work encompasses sculpture, installation, drawing, writing, photography, video and performance. Her work addresses issues of identity, memory, language, ritual, living-beings, the female condition, spirituality and ecology. Her practice could be described as curative as much as artistic. Travelling and nomadic, the artist works in physical empathy with specific environments, situations and people, seeking to repair the individual and collective wounds caused by various forms of subjugation or domination. She is also interested in the way in which the artist assumes the spiritual and therapeutic, as well as the social and political, functions of art.

Born in 1964 in Libreville (Gabon), Myriam Mihindou lives and works in Paris. She participates in September 2024 in the Lyon and Gawngju biennials. Recent solo exhibitions include “Ilimb, l’essence des pleurs” (Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, 2024), “Epiderme” (La Verrière, Brussels, 2022), “El teatro de las memorias” (CAAM, Las Palmas, 2022) and “Silo” (Transpalette, Bourges, 2021). She has also taken part in numerous group exhibitions, including “Le grand désenvoûtement” (Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2022), “Globalisto” (MAMC, Saint Etienne, 2022), “La sagesse des lianes” (CIAP, Vassivière, 2021) and “Possédé-e-s” (MO.CO, Montpellier, 2020). She won the AWARE Prize in 2022 and was in residence at the Villa Albertine (New York) in 2023. She is represented by Maïa Muller (Paris) and Saana (Utrecht).

Curators: Daria de Beauvais and Marie Cozette