a winter at the royal abbey of Fontevraud – L’Express

Extravagance to tell the story of human impulses. This is, roughly speaking, what drives Louis Bachelot and Marjolaine Caron, a duo of artists who made themselves known for their scathing reconstructions in The New Detective And We both of crime scenes mixing painting, photography and digital editing. For several years, the tandem has refocused its work around ceramics, a medium that provides a new pretext for theatrical works overflowing with a vitality that is sometimes morbid to the point of repulsion.

In the former refectory of the royal abbey of Fontevraud, the couple, who fear neither excess nor excess, have set up a monumental table overflowing with ceramic food. In total there are 80 pieces spread over 20 meters long: plucked game overflowing from the frame, pyramid of colorful vegetables, scarlet lobsters, giant sow cut into fragments, mounted pieces dripping with cream, flashy carafes… So many compositions, more or less careful in the finishes, which form a devilishly baroque banquet reminiscent of a dinner as grandiose as it is imaginary. The meal, improbable, is shared by two ghosts of the place, Eleanor of Aquitaine and her son Richard the Lionheart, each reincarnated by a statue at the end of the table.

A short distance away, under the aegis of art historian Dominique Gagneux, the Bachelot-Carons continue the tasting at the museum where small tables scattered around support terracottas in high relief decorated with animals and fruits. and plants. Each composition was created in response to a work from the abbey’s modern art collection from the Cligman donation. Among the most striking are Slippers in faded blue contrasted with the intimate canvas At Grandfather’s by François Boivin (1860), Dark fruits plump whose varnished surface plays with the light like the Still life with bottle by André Derain (1938), or even Blood oranges which accentuate the tortured flamboyance of Soutine’s still lifes.

To end this winter journey in Fontevraud in style, a long detour is necessary in the choir of the abbey church, a perfect setting to show the meditative works of the sculptor Georges Jeanclos, born Jeankelowitsch in 1933 and died in 1997. Entitled Elevation and presented in partnership with the Capazza gallery, the exhibition superbly reflects the creative process and technical virtuosity of the artist who worked essentially around the human figure.

Throughout his career, Jeanclos has chosen to take the opposite approach to the traumas he suffered during the Second World War by favoring beauty, mediation and sharing in his statuary, key elements of his personal quest. and spiritual. Here we find sleepers, nativity, maternity, bas-reliefs or kamakuras, including a number of peaceful bodies which reflect the journey of a man little by little in harmony with the world. That of a humanity laid bare in temporary or eternal rest.