Julien Creuzet (b. 1986, Le Blanc Mesnil, France, lives Paris) has reimagined his French Pavillion from the 60th Venice Biennale (2024) for the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. Creuzet’s exhibition at the ICA is part of a North American tour that begins at The Bell Gallery at Brown University (February 20–June 1, 2025) and will include The Gund at Kenyon College.
For this tour Creuzet has created an immersive video and archipelagic sculptural installation that extends his focus on water as a site of both historical and contemporary traumas and emancipatory futures. A liquid ecosystem of voice, texture, sound, and moving image as divine presence, this multisensorial project is deeply sonic and draws from hip-hop, jazz, and other musical forms and bodily gestures across the African diaspora. Creuzet’s artistic practice has long referenced legacies of colonialism, and his challenge to the architecture and history of the French Pavilion extends to the campuses of Brown, Kenyon, and VCU and their historic centrality within the Black Atlantic.
Julien Creuzet: Attila cataract your source at the feet of the green peaks will end up in the great sea blue abyss we drowned in the tidal tears of the moon was originated for the French Pavilion by curators Céline Kopp and Cindy Sissokho. Kate Kraczon, director of exhibitions and chief curator of the Brown Arts Institute / David Winton Bell Gallery, curated the exhibition for The Bell and helped organize the U.S. tour. The show was organized for the ICA at VCU by Amber Esseiva, acting senior curator of the ICA.
The project is made possible at Brownby generous support from Teiger Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Etant donnés, a program of Villa Albertine, and Institut français.
It is made possible at the ICA with generous support from:
VCU Foundation
Ashley Kistler
