Artist Leo Caillard toys with our relationship with time. Through a blend of different periods and anachronism, he prompts us to reflect on the present in relation to our past. Inspired by science and the concerns of our contemporary society, he invites us to take a fresh look at our era, open to history, in order to rethink our future.

Leo Caillard was born in Paris, France in 1985. He belongs to this new generation of artists associated with the significant changes that have been taking place since the 2000’s with the dawn of the digital age and the new concerns of societies. A proponent of new technologies and science, his interests lay in exploring time and quantum physics, eventually leaving the world of numbers and expressing his investigations through a career in art. Graduating from École des Gobelins in 2008, he continued studying the history of art and practiced photography while carrying out research in the realm of 3D and new media.

In the 2010’s he began to produce his first works to gain recognition in the art world, an initial series of images, ‘Art Game’ raising the question of digital’s place among classical art in museums. His series ‘Hipsters in Stone’ followed rapidly bringing great visibility from 2012 onwards. Through the gesture of dressing statuary in the Louvre, that may perhaps at first seem merely humorous, Leo Caillard raises the question of our social codes and our own representation as individuals.

“My work is usually organised into series. It’s important for me to clearly define and consider in advance the meaning of a series before producing it. For the series ‘Hipsters in Stone’ the idea was to dress statuary in the Louvre with very casual clothes, characteristic of our urban everyday lives. The ‘hipster’ trend with long beards, long hair, worshipping the body through sport, all this resembles Greco-Roman characteristics found in statuary. Suddenly, through clothes, our perspective changes dramatically and we cannot fail to see these statues in another light, like individuals today, leading back to our own entry in global history.”

Since 2013, Leo Caillard has produced many sculptures in the same spirit of dialogue across time. He expanded the concept of marble and bronze works wearing clothes through the aesthetics of the classic bust modified by adding contemporary accessories. The ‘Hipsters in Bronze’ series conveys these creations that have quickly earned a place within private collections and exhibitions.

In March 2018, the artist exhibited an exclusive public artwork for Classical Now, alongside renowned artists such as Marc Quinn and Damien Hirst. For this special occasion, Léo dressed two gigantic sculptures of King’s College’s North entrance.

As his work gains in definition each year, there are strong parallels with contemporary artists such as Damien Hirst and his recent exhibition at the Venice Biennale, Koons and his Gazing Balls, as well as Olafur Eliasson with his recent luminous creations.

Following this success, the artist has been part of several international exhibitions at the MACM (Mougins), Saint- Raymond Museum in Toulouse alongside Jef Koons and Xu Zhen, Castletown (Dublin), Tubingen (Germany), and many other institutions in 2020.