Erre: Labyrinthine Variations at Centre Pompidou Metz

The exhibition 'Erre – Variations labyrinthiques' at Centre Pompidou Metz, curated by Guillaume Désanges and Hélène Guenin, explores disorientation through a kinetic and labyrinthine experience. Running from September 12, 2011 to March 5, 2012, the show is structured in eight chapters but deliberately avoids a linear path, instead creating a spatiotemporal maelstrom. Key works include Raphaël Zarka's video 'Cretto' (2007), where a figure with a red sculpture-helmet navigates Alberto Burri's 'Grande Cretto'; Corey McCorkle's 'An Arrangement (Phalanx)' using mirrors to create dizzying illusions; Robert Smithson's 'Mirror Vortex' (1964); Gianni Colombo's rotating 'Strutturazione Acentrica' (1962); Mona Hatoum's 'Light Sentence' (1992) with its panoptic shadows; and Gianni Pettena's 'Paper/Midwestern Ocean' (1971-2011) of paper strips. The exhibition juxtaposes ancient artifacts, such as a brain-convolution niche from the Louvre's Oriental Antiquities department, with works by Richard Long and Frank Stella, alongside mandalas and board games. The curatorial approach emphasizes associations and drifts rather than constructed labyrinths, culminating in Art & Language's 'Incident in a Museum XVIII' (1987) which echoes Frank Stella's 'Mas o Menos' (1964) at the start, inviting viewers to begin anew.