Raphaël

L'Almanach 16 : Raphaël (after)

In the front room are gathered four copies of artworks by Raphael including one of the School of Athens, a fresco painted between 1508 and 1512 for the Stanza della Signatura at the Vatican; all painted by Bégnigne Gagneraux (1756-1795), born in Dijon and later painter for the King of Sweden.

On the one hand, this is a manifest position that makes a choice to invite Old Masters in the white cube of a contemporary exhibition space over the event-driven quest for contemporaneity and the crowds predicted on it by large institutions devoted to classical art, whose choices in matters pertaining to today’s art are more often than not used “exploitatively” rather than “compositionally.” 

On the other hand, this construct proposed in quite a theatrical way as an introduction to the exhibition L’Almanach 16 wants to project an image. By going back to the conflict between Reason and Faith, as in the project initiated by Pope Julius II where The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament, also painted by Raphael, was placed opposite the School of Athens and signified the victory of Theology, the situation created in the high room and equivalent to the principle of an explicit confrontation between artistic universes organized in the whole exhibition,  serves as a wish to indicate to viewers that beyond obvious oppositions, it is necessary to activate once and again a multiplication of arrangements, and in the light of experience and perception to reformulate the pragmatic community of possibilities. 
—Xavier Douroux