( Project 014 )
← All projectsMarc Henry x Coucou Paris '26
(19 Rue de Poitou, Paris 2026)
Marc Henry
October 19-23, 2026
c/o 19 Rue de Poitou | Paris (France)
Presented by Domenico Positano
For Coucou Paris, Henry presents a series of new works that expand on those he developed for his first institutional solo exhibition, Somnium, which recently opened at Neuer Aachener Kunstverein in Germany.
Somnium (Latin for ‘dream’), a book by astronomer Johannes Kepler published posthumously in 1634, is regarded as one of the earliest works of science fiction. Imagining a journey to the moon through a hauntingly surreal dreamscape, it explores how imaginative constructions can serve as instruments for examining and understanding reality, while revealing how this process is complicated by the precarious nature of perception and projection. These tensions resonate throughout Henry’s latest body of work, which brings Kepler’s concerns into dialogue with the post-factual era. Oscillating between digital and analogue, Henry constructs compositions that merge pseudo-narratives with experimental iconography to investigate the manipulative capacity of the image.
Building on Somnium, the three works shown here explore different conditions through which the relationship between reality, imagination, and knowledge is destabilised. The Unscripted Horror (Of A Grown Man) depicts a man in a moment of vulnerability, confronted by a figure whose presence is implied yet visually withheld. The man’s bodily unease suggests a menacing presence, while the imbalance of visibility preserves a degree of narrative ambiguity. To Pet And To Let Go draws on the figure of the Nachtmahr, a supernatural being rooted in Germanic folklore, traditionally depicted sitting on the sleeper’s chest and inducing nightmares. In Ditlev Blunck’s painting Mareridt (1846), the Nachtmahr assumes a chimeric form, conflating the head of a hare, a human torso, and a feline tail. Henry’s rendition recalls this hybrid figure, shifting the focus from the scene of the nightmare to the creature itself. Seemingly innocuous, at times uncannily seductive, yet shadowed by its demonic associations, the figure resists a fixed affective valence, embodying the duality of desire and dread that characterises the oneiric. In Levania Lullaby, the figure sleeps in the light of day. The proximity of his resting body to the lunar imagery in the open book relates the act of studying to the space of dreaming, pointing towards the productive potential of dreams. What enters the subconscious throughout life is reconfigured through sleep, later resurfacing in the worlds we construct, fictional or otherwise.
Sleep emerges as a threshold between perception and projection, knowledge and imagination. Henry’s paintings sustain the instability of these boundaries, positioning the image as a site where reality is continuously negotiated.
Text by Roni Bitov
Photos by Jana Perusich