Hubert Duprat

The exhibition presents series of photographs, sculptures and in situ works to trace the career of this ground-breaking artist, whose approach to art resembles the methods of a scientific collector. For some 30 years, Hubert Duprat has brought his archaeological imagination and scientific knowledge to bear on producing a highly varied and fascinating body of work. The artist invites us to discover unusual hybrids combining, for example, shagreen and polystyrene, coral and bread crumbs, quartz and paraffin. His work reflects the process of construction and explores a diversity of forms. The whole of his output amounts to a corpus in which the monumental and the miniature, minimal shapes and mannerist virtuosity coexist. At the beginning of his career, one of Hubert Duprat’s seminal works was inspired by the activity of caddisfly larvae. These larvae live in water, where they use silk to wrap themselves in a protective cocoon; they reinforce this with bits of gravel, twigs and other debris from their habitat. In a controlled environment, Duprat provided caddisfly larvae with gold wire and pearls, leaving the creatures to manufacture delicate, jewelled cases.

“Le Miroir du Trichoptère” [The Mirror of the Caddisfly], the artist’s personal collection, containing more than two thousand works, engravings, objects, photographs and films, will be displayed in its entirety in a dedicated space in the museum’s collections.