Théâtre (post-Pontormo)

From February 1, 2025, to April 13, 2025, in the Orangerie

An exhibition presented in partnership with 91530 Le Marais, a space dedicated to transdisciplinary creation and research centered on the living world, where art and agriculture converge.

In the Orangerie, Théâtre (post-Pontormo) unfolds as a suspended space, both fresco and architecture. The work, created using telluric pigments from France and Italy, engages in dialogue with the earth, its deep roots, and its history. This telluric dimension resonates with its architectural character: a floating structure inviting immersive exploration, where the surrounding darkness heightens sensory intensity. The experience becomes almost ceremonial, evoking the idea of a buried civilization to be rediscovered through a contemporary lens.

Here, Edgar Sarin creates a living, evolving work, embedded in a form of collective theatricality. This pictorial theater is a stage where memory crystallizes, where each exhibition reinvents its own folklore. It is not merely a scenography but a ritual—an invitation to walk around the piece, in a space that seems to reconfigure itself with each step. The work then acts as a temporal mirror, weaving a subtle link between past, present, and future.

Sarin’s artistic gesture is at the heart of this process. More than just a creative act, it becomes an architecture of thought, where materials, references, and engineering merge into a pure impulse. The gesture itself becomes the artwork, but this work is, above all, a fertile ground for profound interaction between painting and architecture. As Éric de Chassey suggests, Sarin orchestrates a dialogue in which the artist almost disappears, allowing the forms to flourish freely.

Inspired by his surrounding environment, Sarin integrates the materiality and spirit of the places into his works. Wood, sourced from the estate’s forest, naturally extends this sense of rootedness. This organic connection is felt in the suspended monumentality of Théâtre (post-Pontormo), a fresco that evokes both the heroic narratives of the Bayeux Tapestry and the fragility of a collective memory in need of preservation.

Finally, the physical elevation of the work, suspended in space, extends into a mystical and sacred elevation for the viewer. The vision first evokes a raw emotion before revealing a spiritual depth, almost esoteric. In this way, Sarin aligns with a tradition in which art is an innocent miracle—one that connects souls across time, reactivates buried memories, and brings them into new light. With Théâtre (post-Pontormo), Edgar Sarin transcends the boundaries of painting and architecture to invent a new art of the sublime, where every gaze becomes a journey, every step an intimate resonance.

Victoire de Pourtalès, Exhibition Curator