Johan Creten : La Traversée / The Crossing

Johan Creten is considered a forerunner in the revival of clay in contemporary art, alongside Thomas Schütte and following in the footsteps of Lucio Fontana.

25 years after his artist residency at Villa Saint Clair in Sète during the summer of ’91, the artist returns to Sète to present a new project at the CRAC. 

Illustrating the artist’s passion and brilliance in the field of ceramics, the exhibition will present outstanding works of art, some of which were produced with the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres, alongside monumental bronze works.

Like ceramics, this technique was rejected for a long period of time and is currently enjoying a comeback. Johan Creten demonstrates its tremendous potential thanks to a combination of innovative vision and his indisputable command of traditional techniques. Several monumental sculptures, Pliny’s Sorrow, for example, will also be presented in this exhibition.

La Traversée / The Crossing provides an opportunity to discover works of art that illustrate the mystery of nature through the contrast between flowers and algae, as well as a strange and fascinating collection of real and imaginary animals, which ranks beauty as a saving grace.

The artist’s recurring themes, such as the relationship between mother and sea implicated in his famous series, Odore di Femmina, have continued to evolve.

Busts of women covered in flowers, like relics from the seabed that have survived but have been corroded over time by water act as a reference to our distress in the face of existential questions, such as the place and responsibility of man in our society.

The symbolic nature of this exhibition is fortified by the changes that have taken place in the world and the 350th anniversary of the creation of the harbour of Sète. Changes can also be seen in the work of the artist, who has since travelled extensively—from Miami to Mexico and from The Hague to Hong Kong—presenting historical exhibitions at the Bass Museum in Miami in 2003, in the Renaissance Rooms at the Louvre Museum alongside Bernard Palissy in 2005 and, more recently, at Galerie Perrotin, New York in 2015.

In parallel to this exhibition, the CRAC will also present:

ATHANOR
Alchemical sequel #1
October 22, 2016–January 15, 2017

Curator: Pascal Pique

An exhibition conceived around the motif and symbolism of the athanor, the famous furnace used by alchemists and showcasing the following artists:

Halldór Ásgeirsson, Art Orienté Objet, Basserode, Caroline Corbasson, Johan Creten, Philippe Deloison, Damien Deroubaix, Paul-Armand Gette, Bertrand Lamarche, Julie Legrand, Sandra Lorenzi, Myriam Mechita, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Yan Pei-Ming, Olivier Raud, Jean-Jacques Rullier, Lionel Sabatté, Elsa Sahal, Erik Samakh, Vladimir Skoda, Tunga

Rembrandt van Rijn, Brueghel l’Ancien, Annibal Barlet, Basile Valentin, Manget, David Teniers, Elie Ashmole, Heinrich Khunrath, Barckhausen, Michael Maier, Paulus Ricius, Johan Daniel Mylius, Josiane Capelle