Exhibition Cuiseaux April 2023
Exhibition Cuiseaux April 2023.
Pass in French
page in progress
We
The end of this first quarter of the 21st century is worrying. The human being, who has become his own predator on a global scale, exhibits and agitates a military power that has no equal in its history. The new weapons can destroy and kill massively thousands of kilometers from their base on the ground, on the seas, or in the oceans. At the same time, on all continents, the traffic in «portable» arms and explosives - a superabundance resulting from the previous observation - generates the proliferation of armed groups whose savagery is uncontrollable. Since the invention of the firearm, organized and unpunished murder has never been better. On Earth, no place is safe from very distant but terrible warlike threats.
History has known armies not only decimated by themselves, but also by plague, cholera, typhus, etc. Diseases that they transmitted at the same time to the civilian population. But nothing was done, the military power kept growing. In the 20th century, a new step was taken in this direction: the use of contagious diseases as a new weapon (see for example Kyioshi Kurosawa’s Sacrificial Lovers). This idea was born as fast as modern medicine progressed.
Recently, countries fighting to rule the planet have caused a global panic over Covid-19. One cannot help but make the connection between organized health panic and fear of loss of hegemony. Especially in this case, where a strongly justified doubt persists about the biological origin of the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus. Is it simply a natural event? Was it developed for scientific and peaceful purposes? Was it manufactured for military purposes? Or ... all three? This epidemic, an ambiguous event, neither natural nor artificial, manipulated on a global scale (I will come back to this) and treated in a military way, allows me to join ordinary threats to armed threats.
I
Of course, I do not manage practically any parameter of these dangers which have sprung up in a few years like the awakened Vesuvius. Impossible to untangle the skein of causes and consequences. The jungle of current events forces me to cut through it. What can I draw from this luxuriant vegetation of masses of steel, explosions, devastated landscapes, ruins, gaping buildings, premature deaths, wounded flesh, stunned crowds, resigned queues, tears? What can we learn from the glosses, the perorations, the sterile declamations, the speeches that love death? I feel the sharp sting of it. I look after myself with burning irony. I empty the vases of their fetid contents and draw only the contours.
However the life that loves life goes through all these dangers. The life that dodges obstacles. The life that gathers its indispensable moments of carefree life. The life that repairs itself endlessly. The life that forgives. The life that gives scholars time to explain. Life that gives others time to learn and then they take their place. Life that offers encounters with spring buds. The life that sprinkles the soul with orange blossoms whatever the season. The life that pushes the perpetually fleeing horizon. The life that colors the sea in green and blue. The life that loves the light. The life that loves all the colors of light. I perceive its celestial essence, I capture it in flight. I sow it everywhere so that it grows in the vases emptied of their violence. I sow the color with perseverance. See how it grows!
Unexpected visitor.
The Covid-19 epidemic.
Or the worldwide panic.
Ink on medium, 90 x 60 cm, 370€.
There was the queen Zenobia.
Palmyra, 3rd century (Christian era), Queen Zenobia tries to emancipate herself from the Roman imperial power.
Source: photographs by Marie-Chantal Frère-Sautot, philosopher and archaeologist.
Ink on medium, 60 x 80 cm, 350€.
State crime.
London, 2006, poisoning of Russian spy Litvinenko, with Polonium 210;
Web sources: Vladimir Putin by Alexey Nicolsky, Sputnik via La Dépêche, 3/30/2022; Margaret Thatcher circa 1980, Historia/Shutterstock.com via Britannica.
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 150€.
Unpunished murder.
Takhar, Afghanistan, assassination of «commander» Massoud by means of a camera bomb manipulated by two «journalists».
Source: Causeur, 13 sept 2021:
https://www.causeur.fr/massoud-la-complexite-dun-personnage-dans-un-pays-patchwork-209896
Ink on medium, 80 x 80cm, 350€.
War Israel/Gaza.
Gaza, clashes between Palestinian slingshots and Israeli army tanks. Lost Web source.
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 250€.
Fate or fatality.
Jerusalem, clashes between the regular army and Palestinians frequently aggrieved by the capture of disputed territories.
source Web skynews, https://news.sky.com/story/amnesty-international-accuses-israel-of-imposing-apartheid-on-palestinians-12530382
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 200€.
the big trap.
Russo-Ukrainian war. Journalistic missions on the Ukrainian side.
Web sources: 1) James Marson, Wall Street Journal, 20 Sept 2022, photo Emanuele Sattoli 2) Euronews 31 Aug 2022; 3) Euronews 8 Sept 2022.
Ink on medium, 80 x 80cm, 350€.
Teheran, murder of Mahsa Amini.
Young woman murdered during an interrogation in Tehran on Sept. 20 or 21, 2022.
Web Sources: 1) AFP-Huffpost-Atta Kenare-Sept2022; 2) Le Temps, Sept. 2022.
Ink on medium, 80 x 80cm, 250€.
image 1397b - Roaming emigrants.
There are discreet wretches attached to their thatched cottage and others who wander from one shelter to another.
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 300€.
image 1222b - The missing wall.
The mother of Willy Brandt, Chancellor of West Germany, was a seamstress who devoted her life to the education of her son. The Berlin Wall, symbol of the «cold war» between the former USSR and the West, was destroyed by the crowd on November 9, 1989, under the mandate of this chancellor. Since then, a famous rollerblade race has been running along the route of the vanished wall.
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 200€.
image 1225b - Murder on the Promenade.
On July 14, 2016 a truck plows into the celebrating crowd causing 86 deaths and 458 injuries. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State DAECH although it seems that the killer acted on his own initiative.
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 300€.
image 2857b - French show.
At the official opening of the candidacies for the French presidential elections of 2022, an unexpected number of candidates announced themselves. At one point there were 25 candidates for the unique presidential chair of the Elysée Palace (Paris, France).
Ink on medium, 60 x 80cm, 200€.
image 1316d - People’s anger.
After a month of spontaneous agitations, on Saturday, November 17, 2018 a first demonstration of the movement of «Yellow Vests» organized nationally systematically occupies the road traffic circles. This type of protest will be repeated every week throughout 2019 and last until March 2020. The containment measures decreed by the French state to fight against Covid-19 will stop this movement dead in its tracks.
Ink on medium, 80 x 80cm, 250€.
image 3200 - The fire at Notre-Dame de Paris.
On Monday, April 15, 2019, a fire broke out in the attic of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. This fire remains active for more than 15 hours. The choir, the nave and the transept are severely damaged. The whole world could see the spire built by the architect Viollet-le-Duc between 1857 and 1860 fall. What has been less said is that the cathedral was extensively restored in the nineteenth century by two architects. Eugène Viollet Le Duc being associated with another erudite architect, Jean-Baptiste Lassus. The premature death of this last one leaves Viollet-le-Duc, only master of the works.
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 300€.
«Images d’Epinal» At the edge of the highway.
On the western rest area of Sandaucourt, on the A31 freeway (APRR) in the Vosges, the traveler is surprised by numerous life-size figures representing Napoleon’s grognards. One wonders to which battle these soldiers drawn by a strong line can refer. In fact, it is an evocation of the imagery of Epinal, a neighboring town, which had considerable success. Founded in 1796, it will adapt and resist until the beginning of the 21st century. Converted into a museum, it still has a workshop.
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 250€.
image 3193 - Break for the children.
The castle of Vaux-le-Vicomte, built by Nicolas Fouquet between 1657 and 1661, is frequently used by filmmakers. Here very young girls dressed up for an unknown story. The fate of Fouquet, condemned by Louis XIV (under the influence of Colbert) to life imprisonment, challenges reason. The castle will not be dismantled, but the furniture will be dispersed. Even the tiles of the outbuildings will be the object of sad negotiations.
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 200€.
image 3199 - Boys playing in the God’s yard.
Boys of about 12 years old play soccer on the marble floor of the courtyard of a mosque in Istanbul.
Ink on medium, 90 x 60cm, 300€.
image 2451 - Once more, a nod to Auguste Bartholdi.
In Lons-le-Saunier, at the edge of a shaded car park, the statue of Rouget-de-Lisle, addresses an invisible crowd. Designed by Bartholdi, sculptor of Liberty, and cast by Thiébaut in 1882, this monumental statue explicitly participates in the legend that is gradually being built around the character. The french song "la Marseillaise" had just been declared the national anthem (1879).
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 300€.
image 3195 - Nod to Maurice Calka.
To protect the stained glass windows of the church of Saint-Jean l’Evangéliste in Dole (Jura), Maurice Calka, a versatile artist, created a steel Apocalypse that goes around the church. Very expressive, the scenes are illustrated with a remarkable mastery of welding. Located away from the old town, inaugurated in 1962, this reinforced concrete church, designed by the architect Korady, is worth a visit.
Ink on medium, 60 x 80cm, 350€.
image 1655b - Indices of multitude.
Crowds are not always present at the Besançon Museum of Fine Arts. But one often meets small groups of visitors guided by learned commentators. On this day, a few particularly attentive people were listening to a guide who was describing in detail an antique statuette.
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 200€.
image 3196 - Nod to an historian.
The belvedere of the Cross of Dan above Poligny is an ideal place to explain the landscape and also the history of the town which had its hour of fame at the end of the Middle Ages. Numerous scholars come here to develop their art of learned discourse under the beating sun, in the persistent rain or in the fresh wind. That day, the wind was fresh.
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 300€.
Image 1212b - Tribute to Camille Claudel 1.
The Camille Claudel Museum in Nogent-sur-Seine turns its back on the nuclear power plant that is close to the city. Among a fine collection of remarkable works, there is a small, sublime statue of the artist expressing her moving, unanswered plea.
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 350€.
image 3192 - Camille Claudel long time after.
On this day, the video viewing room was not busy. A few chairs seemed to be screwed to the floor of this clinical white space. The artist is no longer there and, on her wandering, we build a world of symbols that probably concern us first. If she were to return, with what eyes would she see these stagings?
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 350€.
image 3187 - Pause at AuditOrium (Dijon).
Listening to a concert in the Dijon auditorium (auditOrium), designed by an army of architects and sound technicians (American, Parisian and Dijonian, 1998) is a whole experience. Not only have the acoustics been worked out in great detail, but the architecture is incredibly bright and airy, almost in motion. But, perhaps, a large part of the public, more sensitive to the music than to the elegance of the stairs, climbs them without really seeing them.
Ink on medium, 80 x 60cm, 300€.
images 3149(c1, c2, c3) - Jardin Lyrique,, triptych.
Project for a hanging, a backdrop for the Clair Obscur Lyrique association as part of the Nuits d’Orient in Dijon. This piece was to measure 2.20m high x 5m long. Various circumstances made that it was not finalized. Finally, it is converted here into a triptych of more «portable» size.
Ink on medium, golbal : 240 x 80cm, each panel : 60 x 80cm, whole 700€.
Gallic spring.
The river Suran in Loisia (Jura, France). The Gauls, like many other peoples, venerated springs. Although there is no indication that the source of this beautiful river was venerated in Gallic times, I imagine that they could not have ignored a place so conducive to questioning the mystery of the water that comes out of the rock, day after night, season after season, century after century. In the setting sun, however indirect, the light is sublime.
Ink on medium, 80 x 65cm, 300€.
image 3189 - Golestan Palace, Tehran, Kadjar period.
This palace, largely renovated in the 19th century, is decorated with motifs that blend the oldest Persian traditions with the Anglo-Saxon influences of the time. Surprising baroque decoration that I liked to transpose in a timeless mode.
Ink on medium, 80 x 80cm, 250€.
image 3197 - Golestan Palace, other version.
The Muslim cloak revised on the scale of Persian civilizations is the source of a mysterious force that seems invincible through the times.
Ink on medium, 80 x 80cm, 250€.
Image 2809b - Caravan.
The caravans that crossed the Middle East carried everything necessary for life along the silk roads from the far reaches of China to the Mediterranean. The same routes were used alternately by armies that sowed death and by hordes of tourists fascinated by the grandeur of the landscapes and the remains of the civilizations that have shaped the last millennia of the human world.
Ink on medium, 80 x 120cm, 750€.
image 3198 - Ispahan Carpet
This imaginary carpet does not diffuse the perfumes of the Grand Bazaar of Isfahan but those of hundreds of impossible flowers that weave the dreams of deserts more mountainous than the Zagros.
Ink on synthetic canvas, 110 x 180cm, 300€.
End of page Exhibition Cuiseaux 2023
