ART
Michel Journiac |
Written 30 January |
Saturday 24 October, 14:00Galerie Patricia Dorffman, 75004 [map]Michel Journiac
Patricia Dorfmann Gallery presents the 2nd phase of a cycle of exhibitions devoted to
Michel Journiac (1935 - 1995), a leading figure of Body Art, an Art form that developed in the late '60s in the United States and Europe, and whose representatives include
Vito Acconci,
Denis Oppenheim in the United States, and Michel Journiac in France. Michel Journiac takes the body as a terrain for artistic investigation; as the object and central tool to his work. From 1969 Journiac stopped painting altogether and devoted his life entirely to this art. In Lessive, Piège pour un voyeur, and Messe pour un corps the spectator is always at the centre of his performances. In Messe pour un corps Michel Journiac, disguised as a priest, says Mass in Latin. At the end of the Mass, Journiac offers a Eucharistic wafer made of sausage cooked with his own blood. Through this religious ceremony, the artist, far from being the champion of anticlericalism represents, in his words, "the archetype of creation":
Human feeding on itself and men feeding the artist. This corporal food is presented as being more appetizing and more "energizing" than "spiritual" food.
