The placard in the Le Mou or Softness room where the beanbag is displayed, reads in English: Using unstable, passive materials, the artist releases the plastic and metaphorical potential of softness. Subject to gravity, form becomes free and modifiable, an infinite anti-form. "Le Mou" belongs to the Construction/Deconstruction category of the exhibit. I couldn't help staring at the orange poof, wondering why it was there.

Every room of the exhibit was filled with provocative things, many that I had a difficult time undestanding. In the first room, I thought a pot-bellied, grotesque monster of a male model represents a kind of rebellion against conventional standards of perfection, such as those embodied by Michelangelo’s sculpture, David. There’s a ticker on one wall that spits out frank, provocative phrases and proverbs like a fortune cookie. Art? One 3-D work has pieces of a dilapidated organ jutting out from the canvas.

There are canvases that are simply a solid color:

And, oh yes, the upside-down man with his head in a bucket (Alain Séchas’ Le mannequin):

I first visited the exhibit last week with the other students in my civilization class but didn't get to see everything because there's a lot and we moved slowly. For homework, we wrote a reaction to the exhibition and I said that Big Bang had certainly stretched my perceptions about art. Afterwards, I spoke -- in French! -- to my 23-year-old Roman friend, Chiara, about the modern art era and she shook her head, saying she thinks abstract art is neither convincing nor aesthetically pleasing. I'm still not sure what to think. The Big Bang art is certainly shocking, but I don't think that's a bad thing -- perhaps art is meant to provoke and inspire the audience even if it's done by stupefying them.