© Adagp, Paris
"The moment we conceive of the conceivable, it begins to resonate within and becomes inconceivable."
Co-founder of the Dada movement in Zurich in 1916, Jean Arp conceived his "Arpadian encyclopedia" in the 1920s. In it, organic forms, among which Arp also counts Man, "this candy-obelisk", become objects: the clock, the navel, the mustache, the hat, the tie, the bottle, the power plant, the eagle. Combining several images in the same relief, he employs his famous humor to disrupt the usual hierarchy of nature, to mock human pretensions, and to establish parity between man and inanimate object.