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 (extracts)

2025

• «Toujours, jamais !» - exhibition, Loo & Lou Gallery, Paris (France)
  «Transfiguration» - performance, Azayah production, Sao Paulo (Brazil)
  «De la Sainte-Face à la tête-viande» - exposition & «Transfiguration» - performance, CNN, Namur (Belgium)

2024

• Salon Tout Art - exhibition, Paris (France)
  «La Messe de l’âne» - performance, Ljubljana Puppet Theater, Ljubljana (Slovenia)
  «Bosh and Beyond» - exhibition, Kühlhaus, Berlin (Germany)
  «Nos cœurs en terre» - performance with David Wahl, DansFabrick, Brest (France)
  «Il nous est arrivé quelque chose» - performance, La Tangram Scène nationale, Évreux (France)

2023

• «Transfiguration», performance and exhibition, Théâtre de Namur, Namur (Belgium)
  Painting and sculpture exhibition, Galerie Marie Vitoux, Paris (France)
  Workshop, Movement research Project, Sithonie (Greece)
  «Hybridation» - performance, Teatro Calderon, Valladolid (Spain)
  Participation to the film «Orenda» by Pirjo Honkasalo, Tallin (Estonia)

2022

• «Hands do not touch your precious Me» - performance, Cultuur centrum, Hasselt (Belgium) & Brengenz (Autriche) & Naples (Italia) & Luxembourg & Amsterdam (Holland)
• «La Messe de l’Âne» -performance, Espace Georges Sadoul, Saint-Dié-des-Vosges (France)
• «Être Chair» - exhibition, Loo & Lou Gallery, Paris (France)

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 Porto
• 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