Raphaël Denis FR, b. 1979

From an initial reflection on the world of art, on the work of art and on collections, Raphaël Denis has been developing since 2006 a protean work, unfolded in series, on the mechanisms of destruction, even of annihilation, of the cultural object caught in the turmoil of History. The reflection also conveys on the territory of the artist, which is built according to a continuous flow of disappearance and emergence. The work is a visual, emotional translation of History through the prism of art; it thus deals with as much art and History, as history of art.

Since 2014, the artist-researcher has been developing under the title The Normal Law of Errors a series of installations around the spoliations of works of art that occurred in France during the Second World War.

Presented in several museums (Musée Picasso and Centre Pompidou in Paris, Museum Berggruen in Berlin, Kunsthaus in Zürich), these installations are an invitation to both visualize the extent of the spoliations and to discover, through provided extensive documentation, the details of their story.

By relying on the ERR files available online, they are enriched by a significant archival work that has led to the identification of works not returned. The artistic approach at the origin of The Normal Law of Errors was thus an unexpected way of entering a particularly conflicting environment, where individual, family and collective memories, but also legal actors, financial and institutional issues meet.

Anne Bernou