Art, play... and myxomycetes

About "Mimosa Echard, Sporal", on view at the Palais de Tokyo until 4 September every day except Tuesday from noon to midnight.

One of the most influential French talents on the contemporary art scene today, and one of the four finalists for the Marcel Duchamp Prize 2022, Mimosa Echard exhibits in the most prestigious international institutions.

Her work can be (re)discovered at the Palais de Tokyo until 4 September. In particular in an unusual form for her: the video game. The artist, creator of hybrid ecosystems, who is also head of the studio at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, has surrounded herself with friends who are more experts than she is in the field to develop her idea, which was born in 2019 while she was in residence at the Villa Kujoyama in Japan: to create a video game called "Sporal" based on the life cycle of myxomycetes, single-celled organisms found on the organic debris of nature, which are capable of mobilising up to 720 different sexual types. A mine of inspiration for the artist whose entire work revolves around hybridization, superposition, interpenetration. Contamination. A monumental, moving patchwork is projected before the visitor's eyes in the basement of the Palais de Tokyo, where a part of the game is projected as it unfolds. And the experience can be extended online as "Sporal" is available on the Palais de Tokyo website. Mimosa Echard's new paintings are on display in the next room, around a sculpture created from a shelf in her studio.

Illustration: Mimosa Echard, Myxomycetes, 2020 Courtesy Mimosa Echard. Photo credit: Adagp, Paris, 2021