Gérard Rancinan, photographer and Caroline Gaudriault, author, engage with their times and are alert witnesses. In twenty-five years of collaboration and dialogue between monumental photography and visual and written installations, this duo has exhibited throughout the world, artistically transposing their vision of a changing world.
For the official launch of their very ambitious new work, the Beaux-arts de Chartres invites them to sound the alarm on a major challenge: le Déluge (the Flood).
One of the first poems left its mark and went down in history and tells of the flood. Many founding texts, including the Bible, have used this Mesopotamian writing of more than 4000 years to give it different meanings over the centuries: from divine punishment to the anger of nature. Today, this story finds itself more than ever at the heart of global issues with the consequences of climate change. The resonance with our times is obvious.
With a masterful photographic work measuring 235 x 400 cm, Gérard Rancinan stages his own contemporary vision of the flood in the continuity of art history. He chose as a setting, entirely built by craftsmen in a studio, an international megacity. In one shot, more than thirty models from all over the world interpret the scene orchestrated by the artist. With preliminary drawings and construction of sets, Gérard Rancinan has been at work for a year on a rare work, that is an artistic prowess and a denouncing force.
The visual artist’s book of extraordinary size – 100 x 70 cm – by Caroline Gaudriault, embodies the scale of the subject. Placed on their lectern, bound and handmade boards tell, under the effect of different materials (charcoal, clay, collage, origami, calligraphy, painting, etc.) the evolution of the meanings of the flood in History. Thanks to testimonies from scientists and explorers, the artist developed an artistic as well as a narrative statement, from the myth ordained by the gods to the catastrophe caused by nature. The work, which does not hide its ambition, opens onto a journey, through the richness of the research and the emotion it arouses.
In the chapel of fine arts, these two works respond masterfully like a dystopia: because the Flood carries within it the idea of a renewal, this exhibition questions through emotion, the spectacular and the awakening of consciences on new challenges.
Gérard Rancinan is an international artist, whose photographic work is presented in the most prestigious museums in the world and is part of major contemporary art collections.
He is committed to his time and likes to be an alert witness to it through the artistic transposition of staging or experimental works, which always give sense to contemporary thoughts.
Rancinan is Commander of Arts and Letters.
Caroline Gaudriault is a French author of artistic works and essays, translated into several languages. She creates works that give shape to her personal writing and take the form of writing installations in the museums where she exhibits.
Her work puts into perspective thoughts on the era which underlies an artistic approach.
For this she works with international thinkers or artists. She authored, among other things, a work with Francis Fukuyama, the American political scientist and with the French artist, Pierre Soulages.
Both artists exhibit around the world. Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Milan Triennale in Italy, Himalayas Museum in Shanghai in China, Mohammed VI Museum in Rabat in Morocco, fine arts in Florence in Italy…
Each of their exhibitions is an intent to shake up ideas as much as emotions.
The dialogue of this duo takes an original form on the contemporary art scene.
Gérard Rancinan et Caroline Gaudriault : Le Déluge
Until Sunday July 14, 2024
Le Musée des Beaux-Arts- Palais episcopal
Open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. (late night on Thursday until 8 p.m.)
Sunday 2 p.m.-6 p.m.
Musée des Beaux-arts
29 Cloître Notre-Dame
28000 Chartres
T 02 37 90 45
https://www.chartres.fr/musee-beaux-arts/horaires-et-animations/
