Role Models - Elmgreen & Dragset's subversive take on the classical form at Paris' Musée d'Orsay explores contemporary masculinities in a heteronormative world

As Elmgreen & Dragset, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset bring a smart subversion to their large-scale installations. Over the last three decades, they have taken a sideways look at social and political systems by recontextualising mainstream motifs: works have included a full-scale replica of a Prada boutique in the Texan desert and a vast, vertical swimming pool, now installed in Hong Kong.

- By Hannah Silver - Photography by Bastian Thiery

As Elmgreen & Dragset, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset bring a smart subversion to their large-scale installations. Over the last three decades, they have taken a sideways look at social and political systems by recontextualising mainstream motifs: works have included a full-scale replica of a Prada boutique in the Texan desert and a vast, vertical swimming pool, now installed in Hong Kong.

This playful mindset underpins a major new show at Musée d’Orsay, which, for the first time in its 38-year history, is staging a contemporary exhibition in its central sculpture nave. ‘L’Addition’ considers the effects of recontextualisation alongside a figurative rethinking of classical motifs, with Elmgreen & Dragset’s works taking their cue from the 19th-century sculptures in the museum’s permanent collection. Here, though, they strike an uncanny tone. Look again at the apparently traditionally styled and crafted works and you begin to spot subversive details: a classical figure appears to be wearing headphones, another a VR headset, and could that one be playing with a drone?

Building on 2022’s ‘Useless Bodies’ exhibition at Fondazione Prada (W*277), where Elmgreen & Dragset’s figures were paired with figurative sculptures dating from 300BC to the 19th century, here the duo use the contrast between old and new as the backdrop for a consideration of masculinity. In juxtaposing the classical and the modern, they trace its representation throughout the timelines interwoven in the Musée d’Orsay’s historical halls.