"The human face has not yet found its face and it is up to the painter to give it ..." Antonin Artaud

Transfiguration's performance is the story of the sculptor's never satisfied desire to give life to his creation. "In a gesture of despair, I immerse myself in clay with my own body, to give life to the work. I sculpt on my head strange masks moving according to my feelings, erasing my identity and becoming a living work of art, between puppet and puppeteer. This blind work forces me to look inside myself in order to reveal the different identities that possess me. Over-modeling, piercing, erasing are required with increasingly thick layers of clay, producing a sort of transition from the "Holy Face" to the "Meat Head". It is a ritual where the hands dance on the face faster than the thought and bring out intimate and deep perceptions. This solo work can evolve in two, the objective remains the same, but something of our relationship to the other then also is as trans-figured. I am flabbergasted to see how normal people think it is to be alive. My whole goal is to account for the very strangeness of being there. The disfigurement in art is for me a means, by the very power of the images that can appear, to reach this awareness ”

First presented in 1998 at Galerie Marie Vitoux (Paris). In 2020, more than 300 performances took place in 25 different countries.

« Sagazan’s transfiguration, has to be one of the most original, incredible things you’re likely to see. » THE GUARDIAN  

Source: Olivier de Sagazan 

More information: olivierdesagazan.com

Trained as a biologist, Olivier de Sagazan turned to painting and sculpture with the omnipresent idea of questioning organic life.

of questioning organic life. From his passion for giving life to matter came the idea of

the idea of covering his own body in clay in order to observe the resulting ‘object’. This experiment

led to the creation of a solo piece, Transfiguration, in 1998, in which a man is gradually

in which a man is gradually disfigured by clay into a kind of monster. This half-man, half-beast is searching

who he is.

“La Messe de l’Âne“. At la Biennale de Venise en juillet 2021 and then at Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes de Charleville-Mézières

“Hands dont touch my precious Me” creation with Wim Vandekeybus in 2021

“Nos coeurs en terre” Creation with David Wahl for SACD Jardin de la vierge Avignon 202

Many artists call on his work as a performer:

FKA Twigs

Ron Frick for the movie “Samsara”

Qiu Yang for the movie “O” produced by Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Gareth Pugh and Nick Knight

Wim Vandekeybus

David Wahl …

Books: 

Le Fantôme dans la Machine

Transfiguration

Quand le visage perd sa face

La violence en art

Carnet d’atelier d’Olivier de Sagazan

Propos sur la violence de l’art

Source: Olivier de Sagazan
More information: olivierdesagazan.com