Théo Mercier is a French sculptor and stage director. Born in Paris in 1984, he currently lives and works between Paris and Marseille (France). Claiming formal freedom, Théo Mercier sets out to deconstruct the mechanisms of history, objects and representations, in which he recreates harmonious contradictions. By turns explorer, collector and artist, his work is at the crossroads of anthropology, geopolitics, tourism and landscape. Resident at Villa Medici in 2013 and nominated for the Marcel-Duchamp prize in 2014, Théo Mercier has also won the Silver Lion at the 2019 Venice Biennale for Dance with Steven Michel, as well as the Jury Prize for the French Pavilion at the Prague Quadrennial in 2023 with Céline Peychet. In 2022, he was awarded Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. He has had major solo exhibitions at the Villa Medici (Roma), the Conciergerie de Paris, the Fondation Luma Westbau (Zurich), the Collection Lambert (Avignon), the Museo El Eco (Mexico), the Habana Biennial (Cuba), the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (Paris), the [mac] Musée d’art contemporain (Marseille), the Lieu Unique (Nantes) and the Tri Postal (Lille). His work has also been shown in numerous group shows, including at the Centre Pompidou (Paris, Shanghai), the Hamburger Banhof (Berlin), the Palacio Bellas Artes (Mexico) and Arts Jameel (Dubai). Shifting from the “white cube” to the “black box”, Mercier is also a stage director. His performances have been shown at Nanterre-Amandiers, the Festival d’Automne, the Ménagerie de verre and the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the Festival d’Avignon, Theater Spektakel (Zurich), Vidy (Lausanne), La Bâtie (Geneva), Usine C (Montreal), The Invisible dog Art Center (New York), the Festival Actoral (Marseille), the Vooroit Art Center (Ghent) or the Short Theater (Rome), among others.

Théo Mercier is represented by galerie mor charpentier (Paris, Bogota), and is Associate Artist at the Théâtre National de Bretagne (Rennes).

Gᴖᴗdworld Studio+Company is the associative structure that produces Mercier’s exhibition and live performance projects in France and internationally. Between the practice of the “white cube” and that of the “black box”, Gᴖᴗdworld appears as a place of meeting, research and experimentation around what the artist often calls the “gray zone”: this in-between space, where artistic forms and networks overflow their original category, and where gazes and habits shift to propose new artistic experiences. Alongside his working partners Céline Peychet (studio manager) and Alix Sarrade (manager of live performance productions), Mercier develops artistic and strategic thinking around situated modes of production, focusing in particular on locally available materials, networks and know-how. Moving his studio and company according to institutional invitations, most often over long periods of time, he develops a collective working method that lies at the crossroads between field investigation and site-specific creation. His artistic projects usually function as responses to the architectures and contexts in which his work is invited. With his team, he thus attempts to formulate artistic working hypotheses in tune with the economic, ecological and socio-political issues of our time. In short, Gᴖᴗdworld is a production space that is seeking to understand what it is to be an independent, responsible and sustainable artist and producer in the age of globalization.

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Nathalie Vimeux

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Delphine Vuattoux

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Maroussia Jannelle (General Design)

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Sébastien Barreras