The Villa du Parc Contemporary Art Center has begun a seasonal collaboration through several exhibitions and types of support with the Swiss artist Didier Rittener. The aim is to render the public on a number of occasions both witness to and viewer of an approach and a dynamic of work in progress.

LA REPUBLIQUE comes to Villa du Parc as a fictional perverted utopian project, a totalitarian space entirely devoted to the cult of wishy-washy consensus, individualism and the dilution of identity. Beyond the social-democratic dream of the extreme middle ground, a new form of coercion and authoritarianism is in the offing, one that is more pernicious than all of those that have gone before it.

The “Two for Tea” season devoted to various forms of artistic collaboration will close with a summer show that extends and enriches the experiments that were at work in the earlier shows of the series. Indeed, a good many ricochets are to be expected. Echoes between works, references harking back to subjectively chosen historical sources, reminiscences of past displays—such elements form independent presentations at the Villa.

Part of the Villa du Parc’s “Two for Tea” program, the show “Terrible Two” explores artistic collaboration through the lens of the artist duo. At the start, there is a connection, fraternal, friendly, amorous, or intellectual, which takes shape in the creation of a two-headed work whose unity paradoxically sits well with the duality of the signature.

The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. […] “Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be...