Enfants Sauvages

The summer residence of the last king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the time of its inevitably approaching collapse—an Arcadian garden offering refuge from the encroaching chaos. Late summer. Apollo striding amidst temples and lush, soothing greenery that conceal mysterious courtly stories. Standing in stark contrast to this image are the—often cruel—amusements of the aristocracy, along with their fascination with wildness and alterity, fueled by a fear of death at the hands of barbarians. Pleasure and decay.

The Queen of Poland, Marie Louise Gonzaga—an exceptionally well-educated, brilliant lover of science—upon hearing the story of a child found in the Lithuanian wilderness raised by a bear, ordered this fascinating curiosity to be brought to her court. However, the boy did not taste much of courtly life, as after the queen's death he was sold and ultimately put in chains. Feral children, raised by animals or presented as such by people seeking easy profit and exploiting their illnesses and suffering, thrilled the minds of the nobility, inflamed by myths and legends. The figure of the wild, foreign, non-normative subject—fascinating and alluring, yet simultaneously evoking fear and disgust.

His body and behaviors observed and analyzed, mythologized and demonized. The works of three artists, whose practice encompasses painting as well as spatial objects and sculpture, are presented as artifacts and figures emerging from mythical tales—participants in a sinister feast in an Arcadian garden. Seemingly tamed wildness becomes a tool with the potential to shatter structures of power and subjugation from within.

Corporeality, animality, totems, and fauns, swirling in the midst of a mysterious garden.