Le Cyclop, Jean Tinguely’s masterpiece, reawakens for the 2025 season, a year that marks the one hundredth anniversary of its creator’s birth.
The artistic programme elaborated by François Taillade, Director of Association Le Cyclop, intertwines the history of Le Cyclop’s construction with contemporary creations by guest artists.
These poetic and political works, some created by artists in residence at Le Cyclop, merge sculpture and performance. From these creations come fluids, smoke, gestures, and even a socially conscious discourse about our world and the environment, as well as the sound of birdsong,
giving voice to those who offer a form of re-enchantment.
Metal, wood, blown glass, the movement of machines and bodies, songs and cries… All come together to announce this very special anniversary:
Æterna Flux..
From the pathway leading to Le Cyclop, the sounds of blood-curdling “Aztec death whistles” set the tone for this anniversary exhibition.
Jaguar*, a graduate of the École supérieure d’art d’Aix-en-Provence (ESAAIX), conceived of this introductory passageas a move into confusion, where we can transform reality and invent new temporalities. Scheduled to perform, the artist will invite the audience to travel with her to other worlds, other dimensions. Jaguar likes to blur the boundaries between reality and fiction, allowing “atmospheric stories of molecular rabbits and cave dogs [to emerge], encounters to be fabricated, all rendered possible through magic.”
Swiss artist Bernhard Luginbühl (1929-2011) was one of Jean Tinguely’s closest friends and made a significant contribution to the creation and construction of Le Cyclop. His piece, titled Boss Spaghettifigur mit 86 Schrauben, will be presented from August onwards.
It forms the cornerstone of this anniversary exhibition and serves as an additional link between the heritage dimension of Le Cyclop site and its activity as an art centre. This work pays tribute to the friendship between these two creators behind the construction of a collaborative masterpiece, which today allows new artists to express themselves.
Antoine Nessi* composed the work titled Nourrice as a long sculptural body in metal, half-organic, half-industrial, with strong political overtones. The structure distils a whitish liquid similar to milk.
Perhaps it is an allegory of a new social body caught in the grip of an agri-food machine that sucks, swallows, and rejects the bodies necessary for its functioning—animal and human alike—both those who produce and those who consume, all caught in the same vice.
This work was created with the support of the Casa de Velázquez.
While wandering the woods of Milly-la-Forêt, Haena Yoo* fell upon several pieces of wood, trunks, and stumps, which she then hollowed out to create moulds.
In collaboration with the Verrerie d’art de Soisy-sur-École (glassworks), she then created sculptures incorporating blown glass pieces. The resulting installation combines wood charred by the fusion of glass—the mould thus becomes a work of art—and blown glass. A secret mixture of medicinal herbs concocted by the artist is placed to burn in these blown glass pieces, with tantalizing plumes of smoke rising when visitors approach them.
Denis Savary has been invited to reenact a performance created at Le Cyclop in 2013, called Étourneaux.
This piece is closely linked to the spread of Ursonate, a four-movement, guttural, syncopated sound poem by Kurt Schwitters. Jean Tinguely himself paid tribute
to the extraordinary work of Kurt Schwitters in Le Cyclop. With the help of Les Chanteurs d’Oiseaux, Johnny Rasse and Jean Boucault, Denis Savary appropriates the rhythm of Ursonate to reproduce it through the whistling of starlings.
This work is now part of the collection of the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap).
Swiss performer Pamina de Coulon* writes texts which she herself says “are not meant to be spoken but to be read.”
Her performance work is militant, feminist, and ecological; making use of her body, voice, flow, and thoughts, which drift in a kind of transdisciplinarity, around the complexity of the world, the universe, and the hierarchy of knowledge, in an attempt to better overturn this hierarchy. She will present an excerpt of work in a new performance, titled Fire of Emotions: Maledizione.
To mark the centenary of Jean Tinguely (1925-1991), the town of Milly-la-Forêt, in partnership with Association Le Cyclop, is exhibiting a series of photographs by Laurent Condominas from June 21 to September 28, paying tribute to the artist, designer, and conductor of the monumental sculpture Le Cyclop.
The perspective of Laurent Condominas, a close friend of the de Saint Phalle & Tinguely family, allows us to enter the titanic construction of this collaborative work. Nearly fifty photographs, drawn from a substantial collection of archives, capture moments in the work's life, its transformations, and the important artists who joined the project: Niki de Saint Phalle, Bernhard Luginbühl, Daniel Spoerri, and more.
2025 season from April 5 to November 2
At Le Cyclop:
May 17: Jaguars' performance
June 21: Denis Savary's performance feat. Les Chanteurs d'oiseaux
July 5 to November 2: all opening days, film projection Le monstre de Tinguely (RTS Radio Télévision Suisse,Viva show dated 02.05.1989, 54 min.)
September 27: Pamina de Coulon's performance
At the Espace culturel Paul Bédu in Milly-la-Forêt:
June 21 to September 28: Exhibition of photographs of Laurent Condominas, Le Cyclop in Milly-la-Forêt, Soisy-sur-École, Un Rêve plus long que la nuit, 1971-1992 and cultural itinerary in Milly-la-Forêt.
* artists in residence in 2024 and 2025 at Le Cyclop.
Photographs: Salim Santa Lucia, Zia Bazin
FRACTAL WHISPERS, THE STORIES AROUND US...
Just as you arrive at Le Cyclop, different sounds, friction, tinkling, and other clashing noises can be heard, before your eyes happen upon modest mechanical ballets, with a jolting rhythm. A certain restraint emanates from these movements, a certain assumed elegance. This musical assemblage, in a tenuous equilibrium akin to juggling, is the fruit of the collaboration between Rie Nakajima and Pierre Berthet, a sculptor who turned her attention to sound and a musician who took the opposite path. The pair met and formed a duo called “Dead Plants and Living Objects”, and together build sound sculptures such as this one, and concert performances.
Passing to the left of Le Cyclop while admiring the mosaic of mirrors designed by Niki de Saint Phalle, you come to a container surrounded by eagle ferns.
It is in this out-of-the-way place that you can see the films of Sophio Medoidze. These will transport you to the Tusheti region, on the Chechen border, to the north of Georgia. We discover a group of riders from the Greater Caucasus, their initiation rites, and the relationship between man, horse, and nature. Women are kept at a distance, and yet a woman holds the camera, sometimes from afar but always very close to what is said and what is felt. Sophio Medoidze is an artist who grew up in Tbilisi, Georgia before moving to London in 2001. Her dual gaze captivates us, both her insider knowledge of the country and intimate understanding of its customs and people, whom she films with great empathy, as well as her Western distance to the subject that allows us to access her story. Le Cyclop Association is supporting the artist in the production of her latest film due to be presented in the autumn in addition to the current selection.
Another story unfolds in the woods around Le Cyclop, one by Virginie Yassef. Real fake sculptures, maybe rocks with eyes, or perhaps something else—the project itself is under construction at the time of writing. These forms can be found in this particular wood, at the edge of the forest of Fontainebleau; forms that resemble the nature surrounding them but at the same time, slightly modified, almost offbeat, hyper realistic, and inspired by the universe of science fiction. Art, literature, words, excerpts from newspapers, big and little stories, bordering on the obsessive, formal and intellectual traces, everything that feeds our thought, underlies the work of Virginie Yassef who transposes it into a magical fairyland. Visitors can immerse themselves in her work, observing the differences that both constitute and transform it, these openings towards a parallel world, with the passage of a horse… a hiatus between art and life.
Sculpture and sound installation for the duration of the season & musical performance on Saturday, 13 May at 8.30pm
Installation & performance on Saturday, 10 June at 8.30pm
Film programme & screening of the new film produced by the Association on Saturday, 14 October at 8.30pm
Research residency by Rémy Yadan spring and autumn 2023
Research residency by Louis Guillaume autumn 2023 in partnership with the CNPMAI
Retrospective catalogue edition of Laurence De Leersnyder's works- Éditions Le Cyclop
For exactly ten years, Le Cyclop Association has opened the site to contemporary creation. The impressive force of Le Cyclop and its structure provide or impose a certain number of artistic guidelines. The role of the Association is to accompany artists in the creation of artworks around four main axes linked to its history: joint creation; the correlation between music and the visual arts; performance, and nature, which is of course, the setting of this remarkable work. Le Cyclop has become a place of regular meetings and exchanges between the public and guest artists.
Dust and Spores on a dancer’s Cloths
Performance / Sunday, 22 May 2022 at 11am & 3pm
Four dancers, dressed in white, perform a choreography, where the primary intention is to smear their clothes with earth and forest plants. This performance reminds us that nature cannot be understood without recognizing that the air, human beings, micro-organisms, the soil, minerals, and machines are more inseparable than ever.
L’appel de la nuit (The Call of the Night)
Light installation from 22 May to 6 November 2022
Caty Olive has created a light installation for Le Cyclop, which is activated at dusk on Saturday and Sunday evenings. Providing a soft, luminous, and ephemeral transition between day and night, this installation reveals all the beauty of the metal and subtle assemblies designed by Jean Tinguely and Seppi Imhof, reminiscent of a kind of metallic lace. It also highlights the graphic layout of Niki de Saint Phalle’s mosaic.
Juste avant le point de rupture (Just before breaking point)
Exhibition 18 June to 6 November 2022 – Opening Saturday, 18 June 2022 at 8:30pm
Two artists, Jennifer Caubet and Thomas Teurlai, who work, amongst other things, on installation and volume, are presented as an aloof duo, both in terms of form and the occupied space. Their shared interests merge in moments of tension and breaking points, which both develop in their respective installations.
Sang Corrompu (Corrupted blood)
Performance Saturday, 15 October 2022 at 8:30pm
Offsite at Hans-Walter Müller's residenceat Cerny Aerodrome (Essonne).
Éric Giraudet de Boudemange, the artist-in-residence for 2021 at Le Cyclop, is invited to showcase the fruit of his work, entitled Sang Corrompu. It is a poetic and philosophical reflection on the post-truth era, expressed by glass puppets manipulated by both breath and fluids.
Video programme – Guest curator: Jean-Baptiste Delorme – Heritage Curator at the Cnap.
In collaboration with the Conservatoire national des plantes aromatiques, médicinales et à parfum*, Le Cyclop Association is launching an artist’s residency programme in the autumn of 2022 to explore our relationship to the environment, plants, and living creatures.
*National Conservatory of Aromatic, Medicinal, and Fragrant Plants