The 2023 outdoor exhibition La Cinquième Saison brought 26 artists to the Tuileries Garden during Paris+ par Art Basel.
Curated by Annabelle Ténèze, the exhibition examined the garden as a mineral, aquatic, vegetal, animal and human environment.
Contemporary installations inside a historic landscape
Works were distributed between the Louvre and Place de la Concorde, allowing the existing paths, fountains, trees and sculptures to become part of the exhibition.
Joël Andrianomearisoa created Serenade Serenade: Serenade and the Triumph of Romance, an installation of 15 pairs of transparent glass vases on black metal structures.
Placed near the Apollo and Daphne Fountain, the work drew on the myth of pursuit and transformation as well as 18th-century representations of love.
The exhibition’s title suggested a season beyond the familiar four, a period in which natural and human systems enter another state.
Growth, change and the limits of control
The participating artists approached flora and fauna through different materials and scales.
Some works appeared almost animated by wind, water or movement through the garden.
Others used the formal order of the Tuileries to expose the tension between cultivated nature and ecological unpredictability.
The open-air setting offered a contrast with the commercial intensity of the nearby art fair.
La Cinquième Saison did not treat the garden as a neutral background.
Its installations asked how nature is designed, managed and represented, and how contemporary art can make visible the changes occurring within environments often perceived as stable.