Équarrisseur. Chemins de Lionel Sabatté – Yannick Mercoyrol

We'll come across passages evoking dust, oxidations and singular portraits, as well as brief descriptions of studio practice and analyses borrowing, of course, from the history of art, but also from philosophy, anthropology and literature. The exhibition will also take a closer look at some of the major works, such as Tissu and the installation 100 portraits de poussière. Lionel Sabatté's questioning of the notion of value will be followed by musings on flying carpets, taxidermy and volcanoes. We'll dive into matter here and soar into cosmology elsewhere; we'll reflect on the notion of waste and refuse to ask questions about the living and then bounce back to post-humanism... It's an itinerary of leaps and bounds, as Montaigne put it, bringing together many of the issues of our time, as reflected in the joyful, powerful and incisive practice of one of the most important artists of his generation.

After teaching literature at university and working abroad for eight years in the diplomatic cultural network, Yannick Mercoyrol spent thirteen years as head of cultural programming at the Domaine National de Chambord, curating some twenty exhibitions. He has published Parler avec du rouge dans la bouche, face à Rothko (Chatelain-Julien, 2002), Géométrie des organes (Grèges, 2009), Memento en vert et bleu (with Jean-Gilles Badaire, Le temps qu'il fait, 2022) and, in 2023, Intensités, 12 artistes aujourd'hui, published by L'Atelier contemporain.