Untitled 6, 2022, Acrylic, grass, clay, and mixed media on canvas, 160 x 130 cm © Olivier de Sagazan

OLIVIER DE SAGAZAN

"For those unfamiliar with Olivier de Sagazan’s work, it can appear rather morbid and provocative at first glance. He sees his creations as a way to shake up our conscience and to underline the exceptional character of life.

For our first collaboration with the artist in 2016, we hosted his performance "Transfiguration" as a preamble to his exhibition. It consisted of a one man show, in which a man in a suit arrived on stage and gradually entered into a form of trance to disfigure himself, sometimes vociferating, and used clay and paint to cover his face and body.

This confrontation produced a certain effect on the public. After the performance, I still remember seeing some quasi-bloodless faces amongst our guests. A friend that I met in the crowd also seemed a bit shaken. He was not yet a collector of Sagazan's works (he would become one later on!), and his stance was rather reserved, not really knowing the nature of the feelings that ran through him. He really had to take the time to digest it, he told me...

As for me, at times I could not escape a sort of amazement from this character, the artist who had suddenly become unknown to me, transforming himself before our eyes. I had a confused feeling, without knowing precisely that something primordial had been elevated from this experience.

And yet, this was not unknown territory. During the preparation of the exhibition, we visited his "workshop-capharnaüm" in Saint Nazaire and discovered a plethora of creations which evoked a strange universe to me. Sculptures, paintings of bodies, and creatures shaped from the earth—a form of reinvented bestiary—were all over the studio…

The first feeling that came to me when my gaze landed on these disemboweled, bruised, flayed bodies, inevitably referred to a mortiferous feeling. Although, something else came to the fore almost immediately: a more poetic reading. Yes, they were damaged bodies, but they were also faces devoid of pain or sadness. His creatures seemed to freeze for eternity. Sagazan’s world was not so disturbing, and the slightly macabre impression from before was largely overcome.

As his next exhibition, Etre Chair, will confirm, after uprooting there is rooting, or at least an attempt to do so. The artist proposes a dialogue between his sculptures and a series of landscapes undertaken during Covid, a time when he felt the need to connect with nature even more strongly. The majority of his landscapes exclude the bodies that he used to include. With the notable exception, however, of a painting representing an undergrowth in which we see, connected, by the roots, a buried body that emerges on the surface."

- by Bruno Blosse, artistic director of Loo&Lou Gallery, Paris

Born in 1959 at Brazzaville in Congo, Olivier de Sagazan lives and works in Saint-Nazaire.

Trained as a biologist, he is interested in the living and, through his pieces, seeks to establish a sort of genealogy of the sensibility. He aims to better understand how, at some point, inert material structured by cells engenders life and sensitivity.

For about 25 years, Olivier de Sagazan’s work has principally revolved around the human body. In parallel with his creations - paintings, sculptures, installations - de Sagazan produces performances, popularly seen by the entire world, during which he utilizes his own body as a mold, with clay and paint as his mediums. Converting his face and body, he manoeuvers through choreographed gestures, alloting for radical metamorphoses.

The artist predominantly uses clay and plants that he gathers and kneads in order to create lifelike material. From these elements, a polymorphic world appears composed of different characters like a bestiary where humans intertwine with animals.

EXHIBITIONS

2021

06/11/20 at 26/01/2021 Exhibition Centre cultural LES BERNARDES (Girona, Spain)
16/01/21 Hands do not touch our precious Me (show with Wim Vandekeybus) Livestream KVS Brussel
21/01/2021 Livestream Mime London Festival
11-12-13/06 “La Messe de l’Âne” Festival Brigittines Brussel
25-26/06 “Transfiguration” FRAC Besançon France
4-11/ 07/21 Vive le Sujet Festival Avignon avec David Wahl
15-21 Hands do not touch our precious Me KVS Brussel
27/07/21 “La Messe de l’Âne” Biennale Dance in Venice
2-3/09/21 Hybridation Unidram festival Postdam Germany
5/09/21 Transfiguration Lviv festival Ukraine
09/09/21 Hands do not touch our precious Me Rovereto Italy
20-21/09/21 “La Messe de l’Âne” Festival mondial des théâtres de marionnettes de Charleville-Mézières
25-26/09/21 performance Transfiguration 7th International Festival of Puppet Theater WEITBLICK
03/10/21 Hands do not touch our precious Me Ieper Belgium
08/10/21 Hands do not touch our precious Me. Ferrara Italy
12-13/10 Hands do not touch our precious Me Leuven

2020

22-23/01 “Hybridation” Théatre Lliure Barcelone
05/02 “Transfiguration” Festival Imaginale Mannheim Germany
04/03 “Ainsi sois Moi” (Première) DansFabrik Brest
14/03 – “Transfiguration” Weekend Singulier Le lieu Unique, Nantes, France cancelled
23-28 /03 Workshop Estonia cancelled
11/04 “Transfiguration” FestivalTrente/Trente Sainte France cancelled
11-12-13/06 “Ainsi sois Moi” Festival Brigittines Brussel cancelled
19/06 “Transfiguration” Figura Theater Festival Baden Swiss cancelled
21/06 “Transfiguration” festival Puppen Magdebourg Germany cancelled
25,26/06 “Transfiguration” FRAC Besançon France cancelled
4-11/ 07 Vive le Sujet Festival Avignon avec David Wahl cancelled
05/09 Performance festival “Kit Gavatovycha“ Lviv Ukraine. cancelled
1/10 to 15/11 exhibition Galerie Vitoux Paris
10/10 Transfiguration . FIMP’20 Port o
30 /10/ 2020, Première : Hands do not touch your precious Me. Teatro Comunale di Ferrara Italy. cancelled
5/11 Transfiguration UNIDRAM International Theatre Festival Potsdam cancelled
22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 / 11 , Hands do not touch your precious Me KVS, Brussels Belgium cancelled
15/11. Transfiguration. Le lieu Unique, Nantes, France

2019

10-11/01 – Performance, London Mime International Festival, Londres
24-25/01 – Workshop, Festival 30/30, Bordeaux, Franc
26/01 – Performance Hybridation, Festival 30/30, Bordeaux, France
8/03 – Workshop, L’Artère, Lévis, Quebec
18/04 – 15/07 – Exhibition, Centre Bellegarde, Toulouse, France
18/04 – Performance, Chapelle des Carmélites, Toulouse, France
04/05 – Performance, La Fira de Titelles, Lleida, Spain
18/05– Performance, Amen&Beyond, Gand, Belgium
30-31/05 – Performance, International Puppet Theatre Festival, Erlangen, Germany
14/06 -Performance, A Part Festival, Katowice, Poland
30/06 Hybridation Full spin Festival Essen Germany
24/07 Performance, MIT Ribadavia, Spain
27-31/07 – Workshop, Jardin Parallèle, Reims, France
01-10/08 – Résidence Corps-Textes, Jardin Parallèle, Reims, France
18-20/08 – Performance, Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival, Groningen, NL
28/08 Nominated to the Biennale de Venise with ” O” Director Qiu Yang
30-31/08 – Performance, Festival International Les Brigittines, Brussel, Belgium
9-15/09 – Résidence Corps-Textes, Théâtre MacOrlan, Brest, France
17-29/09 – Résidence Corps-Textes, le PALC, Châlons-en-Champagne, France
07/10 – Performance, Dance House Lemesos, Cyprus
04/11 to 09/01 2020 – Museum of Art in Figueres – Catalonia Exhibition Video « Hybridation »
07/11 – Spectacle “Ainsi sois Moi“C, Scène Nationale – Le Théatre, Saint-Nazaire, France
17/12, 18/12, 7 pm. Performance “Transfiguration” Serendipity Art Festival Goa INDE

2018

27/03 – Performance, Weekend Singulier, Lieu Unique, Nantes, France
14/04 – Performance Transfiguration, Festival Rencontre entre les Mondes, Chabeuil, France
12/05 – Exhibition, Gallery Contemporary Cluster, Rome, Italy
19/05 – Performance Transfiguration, Contemporary Cluster, Rome, Italy
02/06 – Performance, Puppet Festival – Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal
27-28/06 – Masterclass, International Forest Festival, Thessaloniki, Greece
29/06 – Performance Hybridation and Transfiguration, Theatre of Lazarists Monastery – Forest Festival, Thessaloniki, Greece
09/10 – 11/07 – Masterclass, L’embobineuse, Marseille, France
13-14/07 – Performance, Kalamata Dance Festival, Greece
01/08 – 12/08 – Actor and performer in a VR movie realised by Qiu Yang, China
26/08-02/09 – Residence Corps-Textes, Scène Nationale – Le Théatre, Saint-Nazaire, France
07/09 – Performance, Gesture 01″ at the Old Baths, London
15/09 – Performance, CERCO, Saragosse, Spain
06/10 – Performance Transfiguration, Théâtre Mac Orlan – Festival La Becquée, Brest, France
06/11 – 22/12 – Exhibition, Loo and Lou Gallery, Paris, France
14-18/11 – Golden Horse festival, VR Film with Qiu Yang, Taipei, Taiwan

2017

7/01 – 7/02 – Exhibition, Chapelle Ste Anne, Tours, France
15-17/01 – Performance, Petit Faucheux, Tours, France
3/02 – Performance, Festival Allotropique, ESBA, Tours, France
7/03 – 14/05 – Exhibition, Ugly as art, Moa, Seoul, Korea
21/04 – Exhibition Etres Chairs, Chapelle des Franciscains, Saint-Nazaire, France
28/04 – Performance, Orbis Pictus, Reims, France
13/05 – Colloque “Généalogie de la sensibilité” and Performance, Lieu Unique, Nantes, France
13/05 – Orlan et Olivier de Sagazan, BP17 Buenos Aires, Argentina
10/06 – 9/09 – Exhibition, “La imaginacion del desastre”, Buenos Aires, Argentina
14/06 – Performance, Théâtre de Jérusalem, Israël
Sept – Fashion Week, Nick Knight and Gareth Pugh offer an exclusive visual insight into Pugh’s S/S 18, London
4-15/09 – Actor in the movie “The Mute”, Director Bartosz Konopka, Poland
24-28/09 – Performance, Festival Sudaka, Quieto, Ecuador
9/11 – 31/12 – Exhibition, Musée d’art de Kauno, M.Žilinsko galerijoje nuo lapkričio, Lithuania
16/11 – 22/12 – Exhibition, Galery Vitoux, Paris, France

2016

2-3/02 – Performance, Musée de la Croix Rouge, Geneva, Switzerland
20-25/02 – Masterclass, University of the Art London, Polverigi, Italy
26-28/05 – Performance, Chuncheon International Mime Festival, Korea
15/06 – Performance, Théâtre Déjazet, avec la Loo&Lou Gallery, Paris, France.
17/06 – 30/07 – Exhibition, Loo et Lou Gallery, Paris, France
22-26/06 – Masterclass et Performance, Central St Martin, London
July – Collaboration as actor in Channel Zero, Winnipeg, Canada
16/07 – 16/09 – Exhibition SNACK, Power Station Of Art, Shanghai, China
17/07 – Performance and Masterclass, Power Station Of Art, Shanghai, China
12/09 – Performance Transfiguration, Biennale d’art performatif, Rouyn-Noranda, Canada
16/09 – Performance Transfiguration, Festival Phenomena, Montreal, Canada
26, 27, 28/09 – Immersive Room with FKA Twigs, London
12/11 – Performance, Biennale, Shanghai
18/11 – Performance, Submerge Festival, Bristol, England
25/11 – Performance, Galerie KUB, Leipzig, Germany