At the meeting of elementary manual practice and cutting-edge technology, Roy Köhnke’s work uses sculpture, video and installation to probe our bodies and the dominant narratives that subjugate them. Fleur, Feu invokes love and desire as a force of resistance to authority.

Roy Köhnke’s work is feeded by drawing and writing, revealing sensual, organic forms. Suspended or inserted into their metal skeletons, his carnal and science-fictional sculptures slip away. Carcasses, anatomical figure, their forms combine the history of anatomy and the history of art to break away from bodies normalised by the domination of savant history and the Western gaze. Both organic and industrial, they emancipate themselves from their authoritarian cages to open up the paths of the imaginary. These hybrid, grafted and mutating bodies give rise to phantasmagoria and counter-narratives. The sculptures question and disturb our representations: how do we look at deviant bodies?

In his videos, Roy Köhnke questions the political dimension of our desires. Singular sensual relationships unite certain plants with certain insects on a common evolutionary path. Bodies of different materiality mingle and question. If nature itself deconstructs natural assumptions, what can these interactions teach us about the formatting of our desires?

Invited by the artist, independent curator and art critic Caroline Honorien extends this reflection in the Crédakino with Retour de Marsyas. In this projection space at Crédac, a series of videos examines the skin as an interface with the world, history and new technologies.


The works of the exhibition, both gentle and fiery, thwart the obvious. They are a breakthrough towards subversive potential, an invitation to experience bodies and desires differently. We are biological, plastic beings, living flesh that look at ourselves and dream, fascinated, says Roy Köhnke. His works open up unknown worlds and infinite carnal possibilities.