When the wild is given a voice, what story would it tell about us?
Inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men, A Tale of Wondering Wilds brings together five French artists represented by Cuturi Gallery — Gaël Davrinche, Quentin Garel, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, Julien des Monstiers, and Lionel Sabatté — to trace the passage from untamed wilderness to a world reshaped by humankind, unfolding through three stages: innocence, subjugation, and rebirth through alchemy, ritual and art.
Teetering between “wondering” and “wandering”, the exhibition frames nature as both a moving force and a questioning presence. A wild that shifts across time and territories, under human hands and through chosen narratives, while opening a reflection on what endures, what was lost, and what may still be reimagined. By reversing the gaze, the exhibition invites us to consider not only how humanity has shaped nature, but how the wild might in turn observe, remember and change us through our reverence, fear, industry, violence, care and enchantment?
In these wondering wilds, nature is never passive. It travels, resists, seduces, overwhelms and provokes human invention, sometimes even against itself. Bronze imitates wood, oxidised iron gives birth to animal bodies, printed metal becomes vegetation, and residue becomes form. Nature is not only represented; it becomes the guiding force of creativity, drawing humankind into a cycle of desire, possession, transformation and possible reconciliation.