The Palace Conference

On the occasion of the exhibition Le Grand désenvoutèrent at the Palais de Tokyo, LA CONFÉRENCE DU PALAIS invites you to descend into the basements of a ruined Palace down to Level -300. \n \nLet's discover the best kept secrets together. \n \n"Drawing on the history of the building and its programming since 1937, relying on anecdotes and rumors of the place, Sammy Stein has created a drawn fiction as part of the Grand désenvoûtement that is as much a conference as a hiking guide. A guided tour from the upper floors of a ruined Palais de Tokyo to its underground levels, takes readers into layers of forgotten stories, transformed by fiction and putting into perspective the imaginaries associated with the institution or produced by it. Each level of the drawn building reveals traces of great artistic gestures, the economic model of the art center, political episodes, destroyed spaces and fantasized exhibitions. Sammy Stein allows these stories to escape from the Palais de Tokyo by offering the public the chance to leave with a copy of the book. On the walls, photographs divert the representations of this monumental architecture and the many institutions it has housed over the years. 1930, revealing repressed imaginations at the crossroads of politics, fantasy and romance." Adélaïde Blanc, co-curator of the exhibition "Le Grand désenvoutement", Palais de Tokyo, December 2022