LENS.- Dragons, griffins, sphinxes, unicorns, phoenixes: present as early as Antiquity, fantastic animals inhabit the tiniest recesses of our contemporary world, from films and cartoons to everyday objects. By turns images of terror or admiration, expressions of our hidden unconscious and our anxieties, these often hybrid creatures contain within them a fundamental ambiguity. Who are they? Where do they come from? What do they mean?

They share with real fauna the power to fascinate people. We confer on them a closeness to nature, a wildness mingled with wisdom. Yet these are no ordinary animals. They differ in their appearance. Gigantic, excessive and deformed, their bodies adopt the characteristics of several animals, such as a horse’s body with the wings of a bird or an eagle with a lion’s head.

This extraordinary physiognomy is a reflection of their supernatural powers. Fantastic animals embody the elementary forces of nature: stormy waters and choleric gusts of wind, as well as tranquil streams and the nourishing earth. They represent their immensity, their violence, their beauty and above all their excesses. Some of them have a face and hands and legs, which link them to the world of humans while evoking distance and danger.

Featuring more than 250 works – sculptures, paintings and objets d’art, as well as films and music – ranging from Antiquity to the present day, the exhibition offers a journey through time and space, retracing the history of the most famous of these animals through their legends, their powers and their habitats. It explores our passionate relationships with these creatures whose unreal presence seems more than ever necessary.

The exhibition offers a thematic exploration of the various facets of our relationship to fantastic creatures. It starts by going back to the origins of these imaginary animals, which emerged in prehistory and embody the sacred terrors of humans in the face of the impressiveness of nature. In Antiquity, they were central to the founding combats that represented, in different forms, the battle between opposing forces, notably those of good and evil. In addition to their strange, often hybrid appearance, fantastic animals were often above all magical: they protected people and rulers, and they watched over the frontier between the world of the living and that of the dead. The dragon occupied a unique place in this ecosystem: its appearance fluctuated according to the century and civilization, before being gradually codified in European art and later in the visual arts of popular culture. Living on the fringes of reality, fantastic animals also helped to embody other possible forms of society. More present than ever in pop culture and fantasy, these monsters from the dawn of time question our fears and our aspirations, and fulfil a need to bring back enchantment to the world.

Louvre-Lens
Fantastic Animals
September 27th, 2023 - Januar y15th, 2024
Curator: Hélène Bouillon, chief heritage curator, director of conservation, exhibitions and publications at the Louvre-Lens
Assistant curators: Jeanne-Thérèse Bontinck, project manager, Heritage, City of Art and History, Périgueux Caroline Tureck, head of research and documentation, Louvre-Lens
Assisted by:Yaël Pignol, educator Heritage & Gardens – Scientißc advisor, Cité des Electriciens, Bruay-la-Buissière
Exhibition design: Mathis Boucher, architect and exhibition designer, Louvre-Lens