A major figure of the contemporary art scene, Annette Messager will present her latest works in autumn 2012 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg, in a

collection entitled Continents noirs. While her work has always combined playfulness with unsettling elements, her new works evoke the tensions of the contemporary world: a world where time escapes us. Fragile hair moving under the action of pumped air; abandoned shoes and small everyday objects covered in a dark sheet of crumpled aluminium and laid out on the floor under a tarpaulin; hanging and mobile elements spread out like a black and threatening mass that is both aerial yet incredibly heavy... These installations and works oscillate between the monumental and the miniature. She generates a sensation of instability and ephemerality, echoing the tensions of the contemporary world. For this publication, Annette Messager asked science-fiction writer Norman Spinrad to write a text evoking her recent work.