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Lionel SABATTÉ

The sphere of the living and the transformations of matter due to the passage of time are at the heart of Lionel Sabatté's work. A complete artist, practicing painting, drawing and sculpture, he brings all of his works into dialogue in a permanent interconnection. His research on the mineral and the animal gives rise to poetic, sensitive, and disturbing works, which contribute to a global reflection on our condition and the place we occupy in our environment.

Following an artistic approach based on experimentation, he works with sometimes trivial materials, collecting dust, ashes, coal, dead skin, tree stumps, oxidized iron and bronze, which he combines. The works thus created carry within them a delicacy, but also an 'uncanny strangeness', giving life to a hybrid bestiary: horses, bees, birds, bears, wolves, owls, unicorns...

Thus, between fiction and reality, a reversal takes place, questioning the notions of beauty, ugliness, repulsion and attraction. Lionel Sabatté strives to establish an archeology of the present by detecting a disturbing beauty in the survival of matter. Nourished by an imagination approaching the world of fables, the animal figure, which is not innocent of a thought on the species, its evolution and its mutations, is omnipresent in the works of Lionel Sabatté. Through the animal, we are confronted with our own monstrosity.

For the 2023 edition, Lionel Sabatté is collaborating with Private Choice to co-produce a hybrid creation, between the art object and the design furniture. It is a sculptural stool made of bronze in the form of a turtle, whose length of limbs makes it a supernatural creature. This unique piece named Tortubouret maliciously transgresses the limits of furniture and imagines a seat in the animal form to which the metal alloy brings preciousness.

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Biography

Lionel Sabatté is a French artist born in 1975 and a graduate of the ENSBAP (2003). He lives and works between Paris and Los Angeles.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS – SELECTION

  • 2023 / Clandestine Pollens, Château de Chambord, Chambord, France – Curated by: Yannick Mercoyrol
  • 2023 / Crossed Paths, Domaine régional de Chaumont-sur-Loire, Chaumont-sur-Loire, France
  • 2022 / La Ruche, Hermès Corporate Foundation in partnership with Vent des forêts, Saint-Louis-lès-Bitche, France
  • 2021 / “Possible remains of our future”, Ceysson & Bénetière, New York, USA
  • 2021 / “Éclosions”, MAMC Saint Etienne Métropole, Saint Etienne, France 
  • 2020 / “Fragments mouvants”, Bullukian Foundation, Lyon, France
  • 2020 / “Chimères de rouille et de poussière”, La Maison des Arts, Bages, France
  • 2019 / IN SITU, Heritage and Contemporary Art 2019, Association Le Passe Muraille, exhibition curator: Pascale Pique, Grotte de Bédeillac, Ariège, France
  • 2019 / “Brume dorée, cendre et poussière”, Musée du Gévaudan, Mende, France
  • 2019 / Lionel Sabatté: sculptures, Centre d’art nomade, Toulouse, France
  • 2019 / “Qui sait combien de fleurs ont dû tomber”, Nouvel Institut Franco-Chinois / Musée 
  • 2019 / Gadagne / Bullukian Foundation, Lyon, France
  • 2018 / “Demeure”, Patio de la Maison Rouge, Paris, France
  • 2018 / “La morsure de l’air”, Ceysson & Bénétière, Paris, France
  • 2018 / Tanières, Atelier Estienne – centre d’Art Contemporain, Pont-Scorff, France
  • 2017 / Luxembourg Art week, Ceysson & Bénétière, Paris, France
  • 2017 / Mirabilia, Musée Joseph Denais, Beaufort-en-Vallée, France
  • 2017 / “Chassé-croisé”, Château de Champlitte, Haute-Saône, France
  • 2017 / “Zoocryptage”, Crypte Sainte-Eugénie, Biarritz, France
  • 2017 / “La sélection de Parentèle”, Musée de la Chasse, Paris, France 
  • 2017 / “Catwalk, Please do not enter”, Los Angeles, USA 
  • 2016 / “Tectonique des mutations”, Beaux-arts, Grenoble, France 
  • 2016 / “Charbons fertiles”, MAC Artuem, Chateauneuf-le-Rouge, France 
  • 2016 / “La désobéissance”, curated by Magali Gentet, Le vParvis, Tarbes-Pyrénées, France
  • 2016 / “Échafaudages d’une éclosion”, Chapelle des Calvairiennes, Mayenne, France
  • 2015 / “Échafaudages d’une caresse”, Musée de Vernon, France 
  • 2015 / “Échafaudages sur le ressac”, Carré Amelot/ Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, La Rochelle. 
  • 2015 / «Scaffolding of a Spring», Curated by Huang Du, Yishu 8, Beijing, China
  • 2015 / «Red Phoenix Project», Public commission by UNESCO and the Mauritian State, Mauritius
  • 2014 / «The Factory of the Depths», Trocadéro Aquarium, Paris, France
  • 2014 / «The Constancy of the Trade Winds», French Institute of Mauritius, Mauritius
  • 2014 / «Lionel Sabatté: Another World», curated by Philippe Piguet, Abbaye Saint-Jean d’Orbestier, France
  • 2012 / «The Crocodile in Pieces», FIAC Hors les murs Jardin des Plantes, Paris, France
  • 2011 / «The Pack», FIAC Hors les murs, Jardin des Plantes, Paris, France

AWARDS

  • 2020 / Winner of the Luxembourg Art Prize
  • 2019 / Painting Prize from the Del Duca Foundation
  • 2018 / Friends of Maison Rouge Prize, Antoine de Galbert Foundation
  • 2017 / Drawing Now Drawing Prize, Paris
  • 2015 / Tour Saint-Ange Residency / Colette Tornier, Seyssins, France
  • 2014 / pARTage Residency, French Institute of Mauritius, Mauritius
  • 2013 / Vent des Forêts, Meuse, France
  • 2011 / Winner of the Yishu 8 Prize, Beijing, China
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