“New shells” is an investigation about the parallels between the Rococo time (the French 1700) and our historical time. The word Rococo comes from the french word Rocaille, a playful term between the words “shell” and “stone”, used a lot in the ornaments of the Rococo interiors.
The Rococo was characterised by the use of adornments that reminded of a nature most people never had seen, the abundant use of pastel colors, scrolling curves, pastoral sceneries of aristocrats hanging out in their court’s gardens, plucking harps and blowing flutes.
It might have gone over 200 years, but Rococo is still as contemporary as ever. At least in the western world.
I realise that while I’m eating my avocado toast for 80 kr. Haven’t we Europeans become the new French aristocracy?
Rococo, both then and now, is a method to dream ourselves away, to embellish the global crisis we are in, to shield us from the horrors happening outside the borders of our fortress. But like a snail in a shell, we forget how fragile our surface is, and like every Rococo time, we’re starting a new revolution to evolve.
Kilde: Udstillingsstedet Q
