THE WORLD AFTER

By Sabine Pigalle

Sabine Pigalle (Rouen 1963) is a visual artist. Most of her work concentrates on the reinterpretation of myths. Religious history, mythology, Flemish primitive painting and also mannerism provide both the varied sources of her inspiration and the raw materials for artistic explorations. Sabine Pigalle produces hybrid photographs in different series, mainly dedicated to the art of portraiture, that combine the contemporary with references to ancient art.
The World After exhibition features the works from the following series: ‘Last Supper’, ‘In Memorian’, ‘Night Watch’.

DUTCH LAST SUPPER

The artist, through this work, questions our relationship to the image, creating, from multiple references, a contemporary mythology. By amalgamating photoraphic portraits and by reorganizing in a new composition a quantity of details (drawn from a hundred paintings by masters of the Dutch Golden Age), by combining the references by means of techniques of juxtapositions and multiple collages, both visual and temporal, the work of memory operates: the version entitled Dutch Last Supper certainly refers by its construction to a conventional representation of the Last Supper painted many times over the centuries, but also refers to the large paintings of the brotherhoods formerly painted by Rembrandt. Treason

Far from seeking the accuracy of the quote, this work demonstrates that truth can be fictitious and memory incomplete. By revisiting our historical heritage, the artist strives to create a deceptive image that has the value and density of a true / false memory, faithful to the functioning of memory, falsely clear and truly cloudy, thus posing the essential question of diversion and luring specific to any image. Because if the digital collage makes the special effects undetectable, from now on no image escapes suspicion.

The choice of the archetype of the Last Supper, Christian symbolism of the resurrection, is linked to the fact that this theme has its origins in archaic times: the myth of fertility. The idea of ​​rebirth is above all illustrated by the cycle of seasons, the cult of which dates back to time immemorial. Thus his Christian avatar substitutes for the twelve months of the year twelve apostle, (themselves forming four groups of seasons), and for the solar, zenithal and central star, the figure of Christ pantocrator. The feminine oxymorism of the protagonists is in perfect harmony with the cyclical concept of the eternal return.

However, reversing the usual sense of representation, usually illustrating conviviality and harmony, the dinner now resembles a court or even a conspiracy against a designated victim.

A battle of Lent against carnival, the austerity of the characters in fact contrasts violently with the opulence of the provisions which abound on the table as a sign of prosperity; unlike a traditional image which generally offers the vision of a frugal meal or reigns a warm understanding, apart from the presence of Judas, presaging the imminent rupture of the harmonious sharing.

The latter seems to have contaminated the audience here and found many allies, we are witnessing a perversion of the meaning and values ​​of the message; like an allegory, the work offers an ambivalent reading far from the traditional image, the pact of living well together is broken.

CARDINAL LAST SUPPER

Obeying the same amalgamation procedures, this time compiled from tables representing the ecclesiastical world, this male counterpart of the Last Supper is a response to the words of the American cardinal Raymond Burke, figure of the most conservative fringe of the Church, known in particular for his vehement opposition to greater church tolerance of same-sex couples and divorced people. In an interview given to "The New Evangelization" he stigmatizes and condemns the place of women in our current society:

“Radical feminism prompts the Church to constantly address women's issues instead of addressing important and critical issues, such as the special gifts that God gives to men for the good of society”.

He explains that women's rights lead men to grow up without a true identity, causing havoc later in life. “Radical feminism, which has attacked the Church and society since the 1960s, has left men very marginalized”. Men, as a result, are "poorly educated" and fall into "pornography, promiscuity, alcohol, drugs and a whole range of addictions".

Still according to Cardinal Burke, the loss of sexual identity also leads pedophiles to become priests. “There was a period when men, feminized and confused about their own gender identity, took office. Sadly, some men with disorders have sexually abused minors, ”he explains,“ a terrible tragedy that the whole church mourns today ”.

Echoing the words of this cardinal, the woman scapegoat is shown here in the position of a sacrificed victim, literally put on the index, at the same time as lascivious and offered like a temptress. Around her, the cardinals stand as judges, form a coalition and display expressions that oscillate between contempt, desire and frustration.

This allegory highlights the lack of sincerity and righteousness, the duplicity of paragons of virtue

THE NIGHT WATCH series

Reference is made to the Old Masters in the photo series The Night Watch, both in the title of the series and the way the nude models are posing alluding to paintings formerly painted by Giorgione, Cranach, Durer, etc.

Women are au naturel in the forest, a symbol of the subconscious. It is reconstructed and blended with tropical skies as well as Mediterranean fruit trees. Once assembled by the artist, these elements create an oneiric expression that is deliberately remote from any realism: these are idealised nudes in a mannerist style.

The choice of miniature format is prompted by a desire for quasi-voyeuristic contemplation and alludes to altarpieces previously designed for private worship.
The Night Watch series is allegorical and could have been subtitled Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: it features pagan divinities illustrating the conflict between Eros and Thanatos, with their respective life and death drives.

The nudity certainly refers to the Golden Age, but this time it is interpreted in a nocturnal, lunar version, provoking unrest. Mythical archetypes emerge: Venus symbolizing fertility and Lucretia self- destruction, Eve is a synthesis of these two archetypes, thus embodying the ambivalence of human nature.

IN MEMORIAM series

In the series ‘In Memoriam’, the artist reiterates the encounter between the domains of painting and photography, but also traditional and contemporary art, portrait and landscape, addressed here in an allusive way, as well as figuration and abstraction.
Like in her previous work, Sabine Pigalle questions our relationship with image in this series, creating a contemporary mythology from numerous references. She blends the old and the new retracing the history of painting, documenting the works of portraitists from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, Flemish Masters from the Golden Age.

Geological Memory
Sabine Pigalle offers a study on memory playing with the details, combining references through techniques involving numerous temporal, as well as visual compositions, juxtapositions and collages. Superimposing and laying down stratum from different periods, past and present time feature, and the traces left behind, interspersing her paintings of abstract landscapes with memories, like the little colourful musical one.

Haikus
The recourse to the theme of death alluded to in vanities popular in the Golden Age, pertains to expressions of the ephemeral and elusiveness, but at the same time timelessness and the universal. These images can be interpreted like virtual haiku, seizing the moment in eternity.

Manipulation
Sabine Pigalle re-examines our historical legacy, creating a composite image through borrowing and misappropriating. The perception of it can be deceptive, with the value and density of a true and/or false memory, in line with the functioning of erroneously distinct and really vague memory.

Betrayal
She produces images of today that resound in each of us with a seductively strange familiarity, far from seeking to accurately replicate references. Moreover, beyond valued aesthetic discourse and the pastiche style, she raises the fundamental question of delusion unique to any image, and shows that truth can be artificial and memory patchy, on a personal as well as collective level.

THE WORLD AFTER series

By reworking, among others, the work of Jérôme Bosch ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’, The World After series puts the world at the age of a belief in the marvelous into perspective with our modern world. After lockdown, a test for everyone both on a physical and psychological (or even philosophical) level, the series highlights the twofold contradictory desire to get together for joyful epicurean celebrations and the need to protect ourselves. Therefore, protective masks are in the guise of little pointy hats, worn somewhat intermittently, as the desire for celebration prevails over precautionary measures. This series is certainly a celebration of our capacity for resilience, but nonetheless a precaution against a danger that is still very much at large.