FAIRE CORPS

“FAIRE CORPS”, from July 19 to October 12, 2025, Hermès Maison Ginza Le Forum (Tokyo, Japan)

Curators: Keren Detton (Director of the Frac Grand Large) et Reiko Setsuda (Director of Le Forum – Fondation d’entreprise Hermès)

With works by Åbäke, André Cadere, Helen Chadwick, Jesse Darling, Christine Deknuydt, Jessica Diamond, Pauline Esparon, Tarek Lakhrissi, Paul Maheke, Bruno Munari, Nefeli Papadimouli, Kohei Sasahara et Ana Torfs

The Fondation d’entreprise Hermès is pleased to present the group exhibition Faire Corps, featuring selected works from the collection of FRAC Grand Large, a regional contemporary art collection based in Dunkirk, France. At Hermès Maison Ginza Le Forum, recent initiatives have focused on building an ecosystem of collaboration with other institutions as part of efforts to engage with issues in art and contemporary society, and this exhibition emerged in line with these efforts.

Founded in Lille in 1982 as FRAC Nord–Pas de Calais and relocated to Dunkirk in 1996, FRAC Grand Large has built a public collection of over 2,000 movements since  the 1960s. In addition to working with museums and art centers, FRAC Grand Large acts as a regional hub, organizing exhibitions in schools, hospitals, and other community spaces, while also contributing to the development of international art networks.

In line with contemporary art practice, the collection encompasses works spanning multiple media (painting, sculpture, video, installation, performance), as well as design, and addresses ever-present if sometimes latent issues in both art and society today, sworks by 750 artists and designers. The collection contains contemporary art and design reflecting a wide range of French and international creative such as hierarchies and gender. In addition to exploring the plasticity and boundaries of creative media, the works also acknowledge the historical borders surrounding Dunkirk, situated near Belgium and facing the UK across the English Channel. This geographic context evokes the shifting power dynamics, geopolitical tensions, and fluidity that define today’s global landscape.

The title Faire Corps is a French expression meaning “to become one,” or “to harmonize.” Curated in collaboration with Keren Detton, Director of FRAC Grand Large, this exhibition centered on the theme of “the social body” features works by 13 artists from Europe (France, the UK, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Romania), the United States, and Japan, spanning the years 1973 to 2025.

“Art is what makes life more interesting than art.” So said Robert Filliou, an artist associated with Fluxus, conveying the ambiguous relationship between art and everyday life. This exhibition showcases works that illuminate the social body as it functions on both individual and collective levels, while reflecting on the fluidity of daily life and systems of order as shaped through art.

The exhibition begins with iconic photographs from the 1970s, including Helen Chadwick’s In the Kitchen, which questions gender, and André Cadere’s Barre de bois rond, both examples of performance rooted in bodily expression. It also features Ana Torfs’ video work Sideshow and Nefeli Papadimouli’s costumes and video installation Être forêts. Symbolic representations of bodily vulnerability appear in works by Jesse Darling and Paul Maheke, while Tarek Lakhrissi explores tensions between foreign and native languages. The exhibition also includes projects by the artist collective Åbäke, which creates works involving expertise and the sharing of manual know-how, and Osaka-based Kohei Sasahara, forming a space where diverse perspectives and actions intersect. Drawings by Christine Deknuydt, an artist who died young in Dunkirk, probe the boundaries of existence through an experimental approach in which traces seem to be erased by the act of drawing.