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Jean Pierre Muller
AKA,
via del Pellegrino, 128, Roma,
15Oct05 - 28Oct05
Withouth any pause from the Modern painters to our own times, some artists revealed the essence of the time throughout personal appearance, co-starring roles and self-portraiture in a continuous evolution as they could fix an original repertory just picting their own faces in the crowd. The research of Jean Pierre Muller is a flesh into the ranks of the Fayoum portraits. He looks for the soul of an ancient era presenting contemporary aspects of the large community of different people he met in his last journey in Rome, now part of his show totally inspired from the vitality of the “eternal town” and built as a site-specific work.
“Time is a circle, and we can easily look at ourselves in the mirror of history, yesterday becoming tomorrow. This notion is the starting point of the works I have created especially for this exhibition.” The title of the show reminds us the possibility to turn back and see the world from another perspective. The artist has impressed by a series of unique portraits from the Egyptian and Roman style. He was also influenced by the Futurism when studying at the L’Ecole des Art Visuels in Cambre, and in the same years from everything was, in a way, colorful and mechanic, like advertising, cinema, graphic design etc. Some characters have been portrayed in order to transform them in 21th Century table of contents. Seems in his drawings here to take off a decorative function and enliven a menu in continuous motion. The layout echoes that of the roman frame, annulling the usual reading order and ensuring a blend of history and strong personality, like it was with the Fayoum pieces.
“This exhibition at the AKA gallery is a unique opportunity to finally confront my art to my love of Roman history, and in particular of antiquity. A godless world, deeply desperate and pessimistic, but then so very human. It is a unique moment where the notion of individuality becomes central, as one can notice for instance in the Roman art of the portrait. The Fayoum portraits are the most striking examples of this (Greeks of Egypt of course, but with the Roman touch of humanity). The fall came, call it coincidence, when the empire surrendered to Christianity, forsaking the earthly considerations for divine and life-despising aims. Roman art turned eastern and immaterial, as the individual disappeared to the profit of the concept. It will take more than ten centuries to come to the fore again in Europe." Past and present, noble and vulgar references happily entwine to create a world without hierarchy. One will have the opportunity to wander in a crowd of Roman faces, old and new, each one trying to capture your attention to simply declare: “I live / I have lived”- and I, as an witness artist, I become simply their spokesperson. As Catullus wrote: “Let’s live, dear Lesbian and love each other. The fires of the sun can die and be born again. But for us, once the brief light of life has (nobis cum semel occiderit breuis lux), we will have to sleep one single and long night…”
Raffaella Guidobono |
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