A wooden caisson coated with a pictorial surface awaits no image, but objecthood.
One is crowned with a cornice, there where triumphal crowns of the Victoires lay ;
as for the remaining, bases to resting amphorae, evoke the winged allegory. The title
of Edgar Sarin’s pieces hints towards a folklore.
At the opposite of objecthood, Hanna Arendt considers arthood as an isolated
status which provides that lasting characteristic.
Embodying this interpretation that so particularly resonates with our critical times
in regard to the environment, the artist works with traditional and natural materials
that contribute to build an “écologie du geste”.
Known for its solidity against the odds of time, egg tempera covers the surface of
some wooden caissons, while others are painted with oils.
The amphorae made of faience are at this moment being produced within his
exhibition objectif: société at Clamart ‘s Chanot Contemporary Art Centre ; while
the cornice - a pattern to be also found in other series - has been sculpted in oak,
varnished in olive oil. In a sense, it materialises the idea after which the artwork,
thickened by its potential or dreamed immorality, contributes to the constitution of
a stable and a related world.
The Victoires express tension through the repetition of a procedure. Pictorial surfaces
reveal a chromatic search. The green (Bretonico) and red (Ercolano) frescoes have
been dabbed then scratched with concentrical swipes that reveal the gesso – the
primal layer – and the wood ; willingly unfinished, Citron shows on the foreground
or background, depending on one’s adopted point of view, a white solid surface. The
project is predefined, yet the execution of the program – because of the technical
choices – lets an unplanned and painterly gesture appear. It marks, sometimes
inscribes or alters materials, and thus reveals its depth, palimpsest-alike.
Above these coloured spaces, the amphorae – flowing objects but here definitely
fixed - originate from an industrial arts and crafts.
There is in Edgar Sarin’s pieces the narration of a technical epopee. We are the
lucky witnesses of an attempt to systematise that has been voluntarily aborted, that
updates the debate on technical gestures in relation to being.
Mathilde de Croix, june 2021.
