TREASURE SEEKERS
You don’t become a Treasure Seeker by chance…
For this exhibition, Antoine Vignault has chosen to present two atypical artists, with unconventional backgrounds.
A renowned art historian and dealer, Gabriela Sismann is also a creator of unique portable works of art with incomparable elegance from antique artifacts. Ferrante Ferranti is an architect by training, but for many years it is with his camera that he walks the most sacred places of the globe in search of his treasures made of stone, life and light, those that only an initiated eye knows how to perceive to reveal them to the world. Gabriela unveils this season, her third collection entitled Odyssey, an exceptional selection of which will be presented exclusively at the OAK gallery along with unpublished prints from the series Pierres Sauvages, Pierres Vivantes by Ferrante Ferranti.
GABRIELA SISMANN
“It all started with my first purchase: a medal that depicts Isis commemorating the preservation of the Temple of Philae in Egypt. I consider it an amulet, and it hardly ever leaves me. An art historian specializing in Renaissance sculpture and a renowned art dealer for 25 years, Gabriela Sismann has always collected antique pieces of silverware. For the past three years, she has been diverting silver, golden, vermeil, gold and ivory brooches, plates and plates to make jewelry. These unique pieces, chosen with rigor and an acute knowledge of their history, are thus revisited to become true contemporary ornaments. First imagined for her personal pleasure, Gabriela’s creations can now be worn by all.
“Odyssey, the word that serves as a common thread in my collection. Because what better symbolic term to summarize first my nomadic journey, my quests, my energies deployed to stay in motion to participate in this idea of the journey that is Life? Yes, movement is Life! The title of this collection speaks of my travels, my exiles, my uprootings, these elements that founded and structured my identity but also scattered fragments of life frozen in the timeline, immaterial stays from which I have not yet fully returned. I do not know what will be the nature of the appropriation of my creations of their appropriation by their buyers but they certainly invite to travel. So I wish you / them a Good Trip! »
Gabriela SISMANN
FERRANTE FERRANTI
Born on January 13, 1960 in Algeria, of a Sardinian mother and a Sicilian father. He took his first photograph at the age of eighteen, a wave in Belle-Île-en-Mer. Fascinated by Fernand Pouillon’s book, Les pierres sauvages, he embarked on the training of architect in Toulouse, which he completed at Paris-UP6 in 1985 with a diploma on Theatres and scenography in the baroque period. Traveling photographer, he has been engaged for thirty years with Dominique Fernandez in a common exploration of the baroque and the different strata of civilizations, from Syria to Bolivia via Sicily and St. Petersburg. His photographs dialogue with the texts of the writer, who defines him in the album Itinerrances (Actes Sud, 2013) as “the inventor of a language that connects the sun to the ruins, in search of hidden meaning in forms”.
“At the age of 16, I had the revelation of Les Pierres sauvages, an imaginary account by the architect Fernand Pouillon of the construction of the Cistercian Abbey of Thoronet, in Provence. The text translates above all the mystical impulses of a master builder of the Middle Ages and the trials he encounters to tame the material. I thought I had found my vocation: I would be an architect! The first edition was illustrated by some black and white images by Lucien Hervé, who later became Le Corbusier’s photographer. They echoed the book in the Zodiac collection on Catalan Romanesque art owned by my parents, in which Jean Dieuzaide formed my gaze with his deep blacks and phosphorescent whites. During my studies in Toulouse, I discovered the heritage of the Southwest, made of sharp edges, granular stones, hot bricks, sensual warheads. The walls and cloisters often belonged to a palimpsest whose first layers date back to Roman times. Elsewhere, in Greece or Jerusalem, I was sensitive to the fractures of time and the stigmata of history. And seeking to translate its harmony or dissonances, I wrote with light, I became a photographer. The Liturgy of the Hours dictates the encounters of light with stone. Ephemeral, they call for meditation on the energies of visible realities that reveal the invisible. On the sidelines of these fleeting dialogues, the wild stones lacked life. I met her in the rites associated with the other Elements—water, fire, air—in sanctuaries inhabited by the Spirit. Ablutions and immersions, gestures of purification or prayer of the Hindu or Buddhist, Hebrew or Jain, Christian or Muslim faithful, embody matter, and help us to cross the mirrors of appearances to access the Saints of Holies.
Ferrante FERRANTI
This exhibition also allows you to see or review the furniture of Nicolas Aubagnac and Antoine Vignault , the ceramics of Catherine Bonte Navarrot and Dainche , the functional sculptures of Yves & Benjamin Pagart, Hoon Moreau or Clotilde Ancarani .
A décor enriched with seats, coffee tables and vintage collectible lighting by Emmanuelle Vidal, Antique dealer specializing in design from the 50s to the 80s.
From 22 September to 13 October 2023, 2 PLACE MONTOULIEU, TOULOUSE – FRANCE
Wednesday to Saturday from 14.00 to 19.00 h or by appointment
