Zaven Paré

It is futile to try to classify Zaven Paré's work. His oeuvre resists categories, plays with disciplinary boundaries and deliberately cultivates ambiguity. His machines are not quite robots, his sculptures are not quite automata, his installations are not quite theatre — and yet they partake of all these at once, in an unstable balance that is precisely their strength.

The artist draws on the literature of Kafka and Poe, Japanese puppet theatre, the philosophy of animism and contemporary debates on artificial intelligence to build a world in which objects seem endowed with an inner life of their own. His mechanical creatures are vulnerable, imperfect, sometimes faulty — and it is in this imperfection that they find their humanity. A holistic and poetic approach that makes each exhibition an invitation to reconsider what we mean by “being alive”.

It is impossible to classify Zaven Paré's work within known categories. His work lies at the crossroads of suggestions, reflections and questions: it is a holistic approach to life through art and vice versa. Zaven Paré's works draw inspiration from literature and theatre as well as from philosophical and anthropological reflection. His output would seem to respond favourably to the questions raised by technological animism.