Ariana Papademetropoulos Turns Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Into a Ritual Space for “Glass Slipper”
At Thaddaeus Ropac’s Paris gallery — a soaring, nave-like space that can read as ecclesiastical at first glance — American artist Ariana Papademetropoulos has staged an exhibition that treats looking as a kind of ceremony. Titled “Glass Slipper,” the show is on view through April 11 and unfolds as a guided passage through paintings and an immersive installation built around water, thresholds, and what the artist calls “invisible forces.”
The presentation brings together two bodies of paintings alongside a central, participatory work: a glass aquarium paired with a mattress where visitors are invited to lie down, put on headphones, and listen to a commissioned soundtrack. Papademetropoulos has described her aim as transforming the gallery into a “ritualized space,” one that encourages a meditative tempo rather than a quick circuit.
Near the entrance, hyper-real paintings of dresses sealed inside dry-cleaning bags act as a kind of greeting. The garments are conspicuously uninhabited, yet the effect is not neutral. Their crisp plastic sheaths suggest preservation and suspension — a body implied by its absence. Papademetropoulos has said she worked from two dresses, one already in her possession and another rented specifically for the paintings.
Deeper into the gallery, large canvases extend the exhibition’s theatrical architecture. The artist has pointed to Roman trompe-l’œil as a reference point, using illusionistic space to heighten the sense that the room is less a white cube than a constructed environment. Throughout, chairs recur as a second motif: painted seats hover in varied landscapes, standing in for figures and functioning, in the artist’s words, as directional cues — images that quietly instruct where one might sit, pause, or linger.
That ambiguity between invitation and unease is central to “Glass Slipper.” In the 2026 painting “Gravity’s Rainbow,” a rainbow meets water in a way that resists a single reading: it could be emerging from the surface or sinking into it. The chairs, too, float in a state that is difficult to parse — rising or descending, ascending or falling.
Papademetropoulos has also played with chronology and placement. She has noted that “Jupiter and Io” (2026), the first painting she made for the project, appears at the end of the exhibition on the second floor, while the last work completed — the aquarium installation — occupies the physical and conceptual center downstairs.
The aquarium is stocked with 150 freshwater “kissing fish,” a number determined by the tank’s limits. The fish, which press their mouths together in dominance displays, become a living, restless image of contact and competition. For Papademetropoulos, the work pushes her interest in art as meditation into something closer to a therapeutic device. She has cited Korean spa rituals as an influence, framing the installation as a place where viewers can imagine coexisting with another species — and where the gaze is doubled, with observers also feeling observed.
Sound is integral. The French electronic duo Air composed a three-minute track for the installation after Papademetropoulos, who is creating the art for the band’s upcoming album, requested a piece in exchange. She has described giving the musicians references that included their own score for “The Virgin Suicides” and ambient soundtracks from the 1970s. The resulting music is structured as a descent: beginning at the surface and moving, sonically, toward deeper water.
The exhibition’s title nods to Cinderella, but Papademetropoulos leans into the story’s sharper edge. A glass slipper is protective, yet fragile; it promises safety while advertising the possibility of shattering. She has connected that duality to a broader vocabulary of vessels threaded through the show — from dry-cleaning plastic to domestic containers such as a microwave, and finally to the aquarium itself.
Papademetropoulos has also situated “Glass Slipper” within an “esoteric” reading of “The Wizard of Oz,” pointing to L. Frank Baum’s theosophical interests and to the charged overlap between Hollywood fantasy and New Age belief systems. Alongside childhood touchstones like Jean Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast” and Roger Vadim’s “Barbarella,” those references help clarify what the exhibition ultimately proposes: that enchantment can be a serious tool, and that the gallery can still function as a place to slow down, submit to atmosphere, and test what it means to be present.
“Glass Slipper” is on view at Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, through April 11.
