The FIAC in Paris is just as any other gathering of the international art world—a time for blind self-importance and a proliferation of designer spectacles. The contemporary art scene tends to revolve around The Three P’s: performance, posturing, and pretension. And what better place for that than Paris?

Adrift in a web of cigarette-butt-inspired conceptual art and neon light installations, I was drawn to a large photograph by Swiss artist, Olaf Breuning. It depicted a mass of naked people, sitting in a parking lot and suited up in cardboard boxes. A letter was written on each box, and as a group they formed the question: “Can someone tell us why we are here?”

The other FIAC spectators crowded into the exhibition space, pursed their lips, and feigned serious contemplation. I merely broke out into riotous birdlike laughter, because the photo distilled contemporary art to its essence: an industrial-chic space (the parking lot), an elite guest list (the nude people wearing boxes over their heads), and a message that is almost juvenile in its unabashed directness (“in life we are all just naked followers sitting motionless in an empty parking lot, hoping to find the meaning of it all.”)

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