“The Misthrown Dice”, 2017. “Works Boxes”, 2019.

The artist borrows from the cosmogonic narratives that underpin Melanesian and Polynesian beliefs, such as those compiled by Teuira Henry in his Mythes tahitiens. The shark’s fin is at once that which is partly hidden, that which slips between two waters, that which hunts. It’s a graphic, cartoonish element, immediately recognizable and associated with the Pacific. Here, Gilles Barbier transforms the everyday can opener into a shark ready to hunt art lovers on the Tuileries lawns. The Shark Bank is both playful and serious, seductive and radical.