2026 Season at LeCyclop by Jean Tinguely in Milly-la-Forêt
Is freedom an impossible dream?
The artistic programme that has been developed for the 2026 season at Le Cyclop encourages questions about the fragility of the freedom of expression, its power as a form of protest but also its illusory universality.
Through a range of means of expression—digital, monumental drawing, performance, video, and music—the guest artists weave a sensitive dialogue, vacillating between resistance, creation, and censorship.
Léna Turist is a recent graduate from the Art School in Aix-en-Provence (ESAAIX). She invites the public to create flags, textile fragments of multiple identities, which are then carried in a collective performance. These banners, sewn by voice and hand, move from the issue of expression towards collective creation, where freedom is a shared, ephemeral but vibrant experience.
To supply the flags needed for these performative events, the artist will conduct a series of workshops, open to all age groups, and will guide participants in a procession through the town of Milly-la-Forêt and around LeCyclop.
The Russian collective Куда Бегут Собаки (Where dogs run) are an important figure in the world of contemporary digital art. Here, they continue their exploration into the medium through immersive works that subvert technological tools of control, transforming them instead into instruments of emancipation. Their installations are inspired from surveillance methods and seek the invisible boundaries of free speech in a world saturated with algorithms and political power. Their poetic and critical universe evokes a territory where freedom can only exist through code, pixels, and fiction. Natalia Grekhova, Olga Inozemtseva, and Alexey Korzukhin are currently exiled in Ljubljana, Slovenia, as they are openly opposed to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, to political repression in Russia, and to all forms of nationalism.
The screening of Niki de Saint Phalle’s film A Dream Longer than the Night adds both a mythological and feminist dimension to this programme. Here, we see an artist confronting the violence of the world through a form of visual poetry that makes the imagination a refuge against domination. Le Cyclop is partnering with the Ciné-Club of the Sismique Association in Milly-la-Forêt in order to promote this film from 1976, which was remastered in 2025. The setting for the film is none other than Le Cyclop and the surrounding villages. A screening and discussion will be held in April 2026 in the new arthouse cinema in Milly-la-Forêt.
Quentin Spohn displays meticulous drawings, rich in symbols, across immense tarpaulins. Between caricature and fresco, his compositions show the tensions that can exist between collective ideals and authoritarian abuses. His quasi-obsessive graphic approach becomes an act of resistance, an attempt to endow drawing with the political power of a mural. Larry Rivers’s Tribute to May '68, an explicitly political piece that can be seen within Le Cyclop served as the inspiration for his work. In other words, this is a tribute to a tribute that resonates with contemporary questions about the excesses of an increasingly authoritarian government, and the growing number of demonstrations that have little impact today.
Anchan is a Slovakian artist and a prominent figure of post-Soviet feminism and queerness. Through their video work, they/them introduces an intimate but political voice. Their creations explore the margins, bodies in resistance, and marginalized identities, reminding us that freedom of expression is an ongoing struggle against erasure and oblivion. Today, the artist lives in exile in the Czech Republic as the Slovakian government no longer allows they/them to express themselves freely.
Last but not least, a memorable sound and light performance is the final offering of our eclectic cultural programme. Armed with an electric guitar, Nina Garcia merges with a percussive light display designedby Christophe Cardoen, a tap dance on metal and mirrors by Anna Gaïotti, and a drum kit by Romain Simon, all set to a clever sound and light design by Étienne Foyer. This raw and energetic performance is filled with saturated, improvised sounds, the metaphor for a voice that refuses to be silenced, an artistic gesture that struggles amidst the cacophony of the world.
Art has the power to allow people to reconnect with themselves, to focus, to continue using their own imagination, to stimulate their thinking. Through images, sounds, and gestures, the cultural programme on offer at Le Cyclop asks a question without a definitive answer:
Does freedom of expression truly exist, or is it simply a mirage that art tirelessly strives to pursue?
Cultural programme:
Lectures (in French)
Andreï Erofeev, L’art contemporain russe d’Eltsine à Poutine (Contemporary Russian art from Yeltsin to Putin)
Isabelle Ewig, Les Merzbau de Kurt Schwitters fleurissent à l’ombre (Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau flowers in the shade)
Catherine Francblin, Niki de Saint Phalle, un héros au féminin (Niki de Saint Phalle, a female hero)
Léa Levasseur, Yves Klein et l’attrait du vide (Yves Klein and the attraction of the void)
Art workshops (in French)
Jérôme Poret,
Mouler démouler, une manière de sculpter (Moulding and unmoulding: a way of sculpting)
A revival of Rico Weber’s Recumbents
Laurence De Leersnyder,
Cyanotype workshop, photographic prints
Léna Turist,
Expressing & Protesting, creation of flags and slogans for a performance scheduled for 19 September. Workshops are programmed with Milly-la-Forêt residents and local associations as part of the artist’s residency.
Programme dates:
Exhibition
Léna Turist
Where dogs run: Natalia Grekhova, Olga Inozemtseva & Alexey Korzukhin
Quentin Spohn
4 April ->1 Nov.
Screening
Where dogs run
4 April 4 -> 28 June
Offsite screening
Niki de Saint Phalle
16 April – 8.30pm
Un Rêve plus long que la nuit (A Dream Longer than the Night)
Offsite at Ciné-Lines in Milly-la-Forêt
Performance
Nina Garcia, Christophe Cardoen, Étienne Foyer, Anna Gaïotti, Romain Simon,
23 May - 9.30pm
Screenings
Anchan
5 Sept. -> 1 Nov.
Performance
Léna Turist
19 Sept. - 3.30pm
Screening
Louise Faure & Anne Julien
4 July -> 30 Aug.
Le Monstre dans la forêt, Documentary film on Le Cyclop
(The Monster in the Forest)
Le Cyclop, Jean Tinguely’s masterpiece, reawakens for the 2025 season, a year that marks the one hundredth anniversary of its creator’s birth.
The artistic programme elaborated by François Taillade, Director of Association Le Cyclop, intertwines the history of Le Cyclop’s construction with contemporary creations by guest artists.
These poetic and political works, some created by artists in residence at Le Cyclop, merge sculpture and performance. From these creations come fluids, smoke, gestures, and even a socially conscious discourse about our world and the environment, as well as the sound of birdsong,
giving voice to those who offer a form of re-enchantment.
Metal, wood, blown glass, the movement of machines and bodies, songs and cries… All come together to announce this very special anniversary:
Æterna Flux..
From the pathway leading to Le Cyclop, the sounds of blood-curdling “Aztec death whistles” set the tone for this anniversary exhibition.
Jaguar*, a graduate of the École supérieure d’art d’Aix-en-Provence (ESAAIX), conceived of this introductory passageas a move into confusion, where we can transform reality and invent new temporalities. Scheduled to perform, the artist will invite the audience to travel with her to other worlds, other dimensions. Jaguar likes to blur the boundaries between reality and fiction, allowing “atmospheric stories of molecular rabbits and cave dogs [to emerge], encounters to be fabricated, all rendered possible through magic.”
Swiss artist Bernhard Luginbühl (1929-2011) was one of Jean Tinguely’s closest friends and made a significant contribution to the creation and construction of Le Cyclop. His piece, titled Spaghettifigur mit 86 Schrauben in Boss (2002), will be presented from August onwards.
It forms the cornerstone of this anniversary exhibition and serves as an additional link between the heritage dimension of Le Cyclop site and its activity as an art centre. This work pays tribute to the friendship between these two creators behind the construction of a collaborative masterpiece, which today allows new artists to express themselves.
Antoine Nessi* composed the work titled Nourrice as a long sculptural body in metal, half-organic, half-industrial, with strong political overtones. The structure distils a whitish liquid similar to milk.
Perhaps it is an allegory of a new social body caught in the grip of an agri-food machine that sucks, swallows, and rejects the bodies necessary for its functioning—animal and human alike—both those who produce and those who consume, all caught in the same vice.
This work was created with the support of the Casa de Velázquez.
While wandering the woods of Milly-la-Forêt, Haena Yoo* fell upon several pieces of wood, trunks, and stumps, which she then hollowed out to create moulds.
In collaboration with the Verrerie d’art de Soisy-sur-École (glassworks), she then created sculptures incorporating blown glass pieces. The resulting installation combines wood charred by the fusion of glass—the mould thus becomes a work of art—and blown glass. A secret mixture of medicinal herbs concocted by the artist is placed to burn in these blown glass pieces, with tantalizing plumes of smoke rising when visitors approach them.
Denis Savary has been invited to reenact a performance created at Le Cyclop in 2013, called Étourneaux.
This piece is closely linked to the spread of Ursonate, a four-movement, guttural, syncopated sound poem by Kurt Schwitters. Jean Tinguely himself paid tribute
to the extraordinary work of Kurt Schwitters in Le Cyclop. With the help of Les Chanteurs d’Oiseaux, Johnny Rasse and Jean Boucault, Denis Savary appropriates the rhythm of Ursonate to reproduce it through the whistling of starlings.
This work is now part of the collection of the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap).
Swiss performer Pamina de Coulon* writes texts which she herself says “are not meant to be spoken but to be read.”
Her performance work is militant, feminist, and ecological; making use of her body, voice, flow, and thoughts, which drift in a kind of transdisciplinarity, around the complexity of the world, the universe, and the hierarchy of knowledge, in an attempt to better overturn this hierarchy. She will present an excerpt of work in a new performance, titled Fire of Emotions: Maledizione.
To mark the centenary of Jean Tinguely (1925-1991), the town of Milly-la-Forêt, in partnership with Association Le Cyclop, is exhibiting a series of photographs by Laurent Condominas from June 21 to September 28, paying tribute to the artist, designer, and conductor of the monumental sculpture Le Cyclop.
The perspective of Laurent Condominas, a close friend of the de Saint Phalle & Tinguely family, allows us to enter the titanic construction of this collaborative work. Nearly fifty photographs, drawn from a substantial collection of archives, capture moments in the work's life, its transformations, and the important artists who joined the project: Niki de Saint Phalle, Bernhard Luginbühl, Daniel Spoerri, and more.
2025 season from April 5 to November 16
At Le Cyclop:
May 17: Jaguars' performance
June 21: Denis Savary's performance feat. Les Chanteurs d'oiseaux
July 5 to November 2: all opening days, film projection Le monstre de Tinguely (RTS Radio Télévision Suisse,Viva show dated 02.05.1989, 54 min.)
September 27 at 8:30pm. : Pamina de Coulon's performance and illumination of Spaghettifigur mit 86 Schrauben in Boss, Bernhard Luginbühl’s monumental sculpture.
At the Espace culturel Paul Bédu in Milly-la-Forêt:
June 21 to September 28: Exhibition of photographs of Laurent Condominas, Le Cyclop in Milly-la-Forêt, Soisy-sur-École, Un Rêve plus long que la nuit, 1971-1992 and cultural itinerary in Milly-la-Forêt.
August 23 & 27 at 2:00 p.m. and September 3 at 3:30 p.m. : Meet a member of the Cyclop team on site for a guided presentation of the works on display.
* artists in residence in 2024 and 2025 at Le Cyclop.
Photographs: Salim Santa Lucia, Zia Bazin
2025 SEASON – EVENTS
2025 season: April 5 to November 16, 2025
At Le Cyclop:
May 17: Performance by Jaguar (Anaël Martin)
June 21: Performance by Denis Savary and Les Chanteurs d’Oiseaux
July 5 – November 2: On all opening days, screening of the film Le monstre de Tinguely (RTS Swiss Radio and Television, Viva program, 02/05/1989, 54 min.)
September 27, 8:30 pm: Performance by Pamina de Coulon and lighting of Spaghettifigur mit 86 Schrauben in Boss, a monumental sculpture by Bernhard Luginbühl
At the Paul Bédu Cultural Center, Milly-la-Forêt:
June 21 – September 28: Photography exhibition by Laurent Condominas, Le Cyclop in Milly-la-Forêt, Soisy-sur-École, A Dream Longer Than the Night, 1971–1992, and a cultural trail through the town of Milly-la-Forêt.
August 23 and August 27 at 2:00 pm, and September 3 at 3:30 pm: Meet a member of the Cyclop team on site, who will present the exhibited works.
* Artists in residence at Le Cyclop in 2024 and 2025.
Photographs: Salim Santa Lucia, Zia Bazin