Gilles Barbier's Sleeping Couple Devoured by Time at Galerie Vallois

Gilles Barbier's exhibition at Galerie Georges-Philippe et Nathalie Vallois in Paris, from September 20 to October 26, 2013, presents a tableau of a nude couple lying in the gallery space. The woman rests on a bed of rock and moss, while the man has collapsed at the foot of a tree trunk, as if after excessive drinking. Both are gradually being overtaken by vegetation, remaining eternally young in a state of suspended animation reminiscent of Sleeping Beauty. The figures evoke mythological Titans chained to Tartarus and recall Giambologna's allegory of the Apennines, a weary old man eroded by lichen. The sleepers cannot partake in the feast laid out in their honor. On a table, an array of victuals includes recurring motifs in Barbier's work—dripping cheeses—alongside medieval-inspired items like juicy roasted hams and stew in a large copper cauldron. Among the foods, white architectural maquettes of Mediterranean buildings emerge, echoing a 1992 series of reproductions of Renaissance paintings colonized by architectural fragments. According to the artist, the subject of the exhibition is time devouring everything: vanities, memento mori, the time of flesh versus stone, and the titanic labor of reproducing each fruit and cake in hyperrealistic resin, freezing them until the end of time, just like the sleeping couple.