Aline Asmar d’Amman Brings an Architectural Marvel and Glorious Artworks Together In Stunning Installation
For the Project 12 exhibition, the architect enlivens the Palais Garnier in Paris with works by Johan Creten, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Eva Helene Pade, and more, which will then cross the block at Sotheby’s
Designed 150 years ago by the French architect
Charles Garnier, the Palais Garnier stands as a testament to the impeccable beauty of the Beaux-Arts style with grand staircases framed by ornate railings, towering archways topped by expressive frescoes, and a vaulted ceiling brought to life with exuberant paintings by Isidore Alexandre Auguste Pils. However, this week, the cinematic surroundings are even more captivating with the installation of 12 dynamic artworks, curated by Aline Asmar d’Amman.
“The Palais Garnier’s white-marble grand staircase is one of my absolute architectural obsessions: a stage for amplified creativity, each flight a spectacle,” says d’Amman, who recalls numerous trips to the Paris landmark as an architecture student and with Chanel as a major Patron of the Paris Opera Ballet.
To help commemorate the milestone anniversary of the monument in 2025, the Paris Opera and the Association for the Outreach of the Paris Opera (AROP) conceived Project 12, an initiative that pays homage to Charles Garnier’s original vision of combining art and architecture into one wondrous work of staggering beauty. On view through October 30, the exhibition incorporates 12 unique commissions that respond to the scenography; here, d’Amman installed pieces by Omar Ba, GaHee Park, Emma Webster, Spencer Sweeney, Cy Gavin, Ha Bing, Eva Helene Pade, Petrit Halilaj, and Dhewadi Hadjab in the balconies, as well as sculptures by Jeanne Vicerial, Johan Creten, and Jean-Michel Othoniel in the avant-foyer spaces. “The exhibition journey reveals a play of visual and narrative echoes, like a gracious dance between the artworks, the architecture, and history in motion,” says d’Amman.
On the balconies, cupids, winged deities, and other romantic figures sit in dialogue with the similar motifs of Pils’s original artwork. More dramatic forms hold a commanding presence amongst glittering chandeliers and robust pillars framing gilded vistas. “I was touched by the many stories and images of each resident artist,” says d’Amman. “Each of the artists developed a close intimacy and a singular perspective on the movement, the bodies, the artistic flair, and the theatrical context of the monument, from its grand spaces to its backstage, from spectacles to rehearsals.”
Given the freedom to interpret the experience in their own way, each artist created a completely unique expression. Algerian painter Dhewadi Hadjab observed rehearsals for Rudolf Nureyev’s The Sleeping Beauty, Sylvia by Manuel Legris, and Appartement by Mats Ek, as well as the Défilé du Ballet, a moment when students take a bow alongside dancers from the company. Senegalese artist Omar Ba found his inspiration in painters creating the scenography for the opera, the floating fabrics within the costume department, and the decorative detail of the foyers, while Korean talent GaHee Park was moved by the curtains that open and close to hide and reveal the magic of a performance.
“Every artist had full freedom to create responding to the Project 12 invitation to deliver a work permeated by the spirit of the Palais Garnier and the opera and ballet performing artists,” says d’Amman. “This sentence by Garnier himself came to my mind when discovering the result of the works to deliver in a special scenography: ‘Let us therefore allow these works, which are our life, to manifest themselves with amplitude, with breadth.’ His call carries the same soul as that of Project 12 today.”
Erected to coincide with Art Basel Paris, the installation will close on October 30; afterwards, the 12 original artworks will appear in Sotheby’s December 3 “Modern and Contemporary Art” auction. So while the display was short-lived, the spirit has a more resounding reach, encapsulating both the legacy of the Palais Garnier and the driving narrative that steers d’Amman’s practice.
“My contemporary architectural approach is driven by stories weaving past and future in search of material poetry. Like a permanent dance, these invisible threads are made of movement, correspondences, and convergences, anchored in a magnified reality,” she says. “If Nietzsche invites us to be the poets of our own lives, the opera is its perfect embodiment. All the arts come together in harmony, attuning the gesture of man to the effervescence of creation. This scenography, imbued with the spirit of the place, aims to be its reflection. My intention is to bring Garnier’s spectacular architecture, the work of Pils, and contemporary creation in dialogue, weaving them together like a friendship.”