Embedded Files
Visual artist of the Anthropocene
News in brief : launched at a dizzying pace, capitalism crashes on the wall of planetary limits.
© Adagp, Paris, 2022.
Acrylic, varnish and gesso on wax.
23 x 12 x 5 cm. 0,5 kg.
With the industrial revolution of the 19th century, many natural resources (which sometimes took tens of millions of years to build) began to be exploited intensively and at a lower cost by Western countries, today driving part of the humanity to live in an economy of glut.
At the origin of this dazzling growth, the development of a system of globalized capitalism, based on laws cut off from the living world (those of profit and accumulation), which caused the commodification and standardization of the earth and workers (the two sources of all wealth), and multiplied artificial consumerist needs and dependencies.
In its current exacerbated form, this system consists in producing and selling, with great fanfare, anything, anywhere, and under any conditions, as long as it generates a financial profit. .
While capitalist ideology increasingly governs the behavior of individuals and the economic and social policies of States, it now comes up against social and ecological limits. Social, because the immoderate search for profits as a basic principle, generates growing inequalities, precariousness, endemic unemployment, psychological disorders, and social conflicts. Ecological, because physics invalidates the possibility of an infinite overexploitation of resources and waste sinks, and because the consequences of climate and ecosystem disturbances will be devastating and uncontrollable.
Avoiding the crash will probably require, for the least sober countries, to massively reduce their consumption of resources, to reduce their populations, and to pilot regenerative economies (through subsidies, taxes, limits, prohibitions), to produce and distribute more fairly and ecologically, with a view to satisfying essential social needs, in the general interest and no longer in the sole interest of profit.
As for knowing if happiness is accessible outside of unbridled consumerism, perhaps it is enough to meditate on the fact that our comfort of life is today immensely superior to that of Louis XIV, and to think with André Gorz : "We can be happier with less opulence, because in a society without privilege, there are no poor".
The real cost of fast fashion.
April 24, 2021.
© Adagp, Paris, 2021.
Clothing, flip flops, acrylic and gesso on wax.
Eight years ago, the Rana Plaza collapsed, a Bangladeshi building housing textile workshops working for various international clothing brands. At least 1,138 dead and 2,500 injured.
Since then, ready-to-wear brands have focused their advertising on sustainable and responsible development, in an attempt to make people forget their responsibilities towards:
the 60% increase in Western clothing consumption in the space of 15 years,
the production, each year, of 150 billion items of clothing, nearly 60% of which ends up in incinerators or landfills within a year of production,
the emission of more than 8% of greenhouse gases worldwide,
the use of 20 to 25% of chemical compounds produced in the world,
the colossal pressure exerted on production factories, and unacceptable purchasing practices, which increase inequalities.
This installation illustrates the destructive nature of many fashion companies, the second most polluting industry in the world, and one of the least ethical.
STOP recreational hunting.
© Adagp, Paris, 2021.
Printed paper and tape on panel.
If you too have a printer, a pair of scissors, and tape, then you can express your will to:
end the atrocities of recreational hunting,
see the creation of a professional hunting office with professional people, trained in shooting and knowledge of wildlife, and dedicated to reestablishing a natural balance undermined by decades of practice of pyromaniac firemen who " do not give a damn about regulating ", by the admission of their current dilettante representative.
Dove.
© Adagp, Paris, 2022.
Acrylic, varnish and gesso on wax.
28 x 28 x 15 cm. 0,5 kg.
Valbonne, place des Arcades.
Peace disappears within their walls of conquest, domination, power and outsized egos.
Living together.
© Adagp, Paris, 2022.
Acrylic, varnish and gesso on wax.
28 x 13 x 6 cm. 0,5 kg.
Grasse, place du Petit Puy.
While the historical distribution of the brown bear extended to all environments of the northern hemisphere, it has been completely exterminated in many regions, and is now confined to inaccessible mountains and boreal forests, in considerably reduced numbers. .
Its current total population is estimated at around 200,000 worldwide, with the largest populations in Russia (120,000), the United States (32,500), and Canada (21,750). In Europe, there are about 14,000 bears, separated into ten distinct populations. In France, it only survives in the Pyrenees where its population almost reached extinction (5 individuals in 1995). A program to reintroduce bears of Slovenian origin has saved this remnant from certain disappearance, by gradually repopulating it (about 40 individuals now).
However, its viability is not guaranteed in the long term, due to their low numbers, the fragmentation of their habitat, problems of consanguinity, and the pressure of men who oppose the survival of the species. In 2020, for example, three bears were killed by poaching or poisoning in France, against the backdrop of a broad controversy on the part of breeders, who perceive it as a carnivore and attribute a lot of damage to it.
The brown bear is however largely vegetarian, getting up to 75% of its calories from plants, and it lacks the predatory abilities of wild canines and felids. It adapts its diet to local and seasonal resources, feeding on plants (berries, roots, shoots, dried fruits), fungi, fish, insects, small mammals, and vulnerable wild or unprotected domestic ungulates. In winter it becomes lethargic and draws on its fat reserves accumulated during the summer.
Extinction.
© Adagp, Paris, 2022.
Acrylic, varnish and gesso on wax.
30 x 9 x 5 cm.
Antibes, place Nationale.
Largest wild feline on our planet, adapted to a wide variety of environments (from the jungle to the snowy forest), capable of moving noiselessly to get as close as possible to its prey, the tiger is one of the species the most emblematic in the world, a symbol of power and strength.
It is also one of the most endangered. In less than 100 years, its population has dropped by 95%, and three subspecies have disappeared. Despite the implementation of protective measures, the species remains today in critical danger of extinction: there are less than 4,000 individuals left in the wild across a handful of countries.
Poaching, the loss of its habitat (93% of its territory has disappeared in 100 years), and the scarcity of its wild prey are currently the main causes of its decline.
Living together.
© Adagp, Paris, 2022.
Acrylic, varnish and gesso on wax.
30 x 10 x 6 cm. 0,4 kg.
Grasse, place des Ormeaux.
The wolf is one of the terrestrial mammal species whose natural distribution was the most vast: in the northern hemisphere, it was found in all environments and climates.
At the beginning of the 20th century, it had disappeared from almost all Western countries, following its extermination by man, due to its predation on livestock.
In the 21st century, there are only about 300,000 individuals left in the world, mainly in large wild spaces (taiga in Siberia and Canada, steppes and mountain ranges in Europe and Central Asia).
In France, it returned timidly at the beginning of the 1990s via the southern Alps, due to the extension of Italian populations.
He lives in packs and maintains strong social ties for the survival of his group.
Endowed with exceptional hearing and smell, he is also an excellent runner, fast and enduring.
A carnivorous hunter, it adapts its diet to the prey available (roe deer, chamois, wild boar, deer, ibex, domestic cattle, rodents, etc.).
By essentially slaughtering weak or sick animals, it contributes to the balance, strengthening and regulation of species.
The importance of its attacks on domestic livestock is linked to their ease of access (presence or not of guard dogs and livestock regrouping pens), and to the abundance of wild prey in the territory.
Fascinating, free and wild, it resolutely questions our desire to be masters, possessors and preeminent over all living things.
Extinction.
© Adagp, Paris, 2021.
Acrylic, varnish and gesso on wax.
28 x 13 x 6 cm. 0,5 kg.
France, Valbonne, Place des Arcades.
Emblematic species of the arctic environment, perfectly adapted to its environment, with its mimetic white fur, its thick layer of fat, its wide slightly webbed and hairy paws allowing it to swim over great distances and to walk in the fresh snow without worrying. ing down, its small ears and its black skin ensuring better conservation of its body heat, its highly developed sense of smell enabling it to locate prey several kilometers away, the polar bear is the largest terrestrial carnivore in the world.
With climate change and the reduction in the surface of the pack ice, his fasting period lengthened and his state of health declined. Hunting is also one of the main threats to the species, now considered vulnerable.
Living together.
© Adagp, Paris, 2022.
Acrylic, varnish and gesso on wax.
30 x 10 x 6 cm. 0,4 kg.
Mouans-Sartoux, place Suzanne de Villeneuve.
The lynx is a territorial feline, living preferentially in large areas of boreal and mixed forests.
Historically present in all temperate and cold climates of the northern hemisphere, its distribution area has been greatly reduced, particularly in Europe. In question, its persecution by humans, the decrease in the number of its natural prey, and the fragmentation and destruction of its forest habitat.
Totally exterminated in France in the 19th century, it returns timidly to the East, by reintroductions, and naturally by Switzerland.
With today less than 200 lynx on French territory and 9,500 in Europe, the species, extremely fragmented, is very vulnerable in the long term.
Exclusively carnivorous, the lynx feeds mainly on deer, chamois, small rodents, but also insects and birds, with little impact on the populations concerned. It does not attack the human being, even when this one approaches its offspring.
With very sensitive vision in low light and very accurate in detecting movement, he is also an excellent climber and jumper.
A nocturnal hunter, it silently roams its territory, alone. It is only during the rutting period, and during the breeding of the young that several lynx can rub shoulders.
Humans, through poaching and road collisions, are the cause of three quarters of adult lynx deaths. 80% of young people do not reach childbearing age, decimated by parasitic diseases or hunger.
The survival of this sensitive and majestic mammal fundamentally depends on our ability to reduce our hold on natural environments.
Extinction.
© Adagp, Paris, 2022.
Acrylic, varnish and gesso on wax.
22 x 20 x 6 cm. 0,5 kg.
Valbonne, place Méjane.
The rhinoceros is the second largest living land mammal, after the elephant.
In less than 200 years, its population has fallen by 98%. Of the 5 remaining current species, 3 are critically endangered, 1 is vulnerable, and 1 is now only near threatened (the white rhino), thanks to more than a century of conservation work from a relict nucleus of less than a hundred individuals found in 1895 in South Africa, when this species was thought to be definitively extinct.
Poaching (for its horn) and habitat loss are currently the main causes of its decline.
Do not forget the other Living ones.
(Series of sculpture installations in the street).
© Adagp, Paris, 2021.
Acrylic and gesso on wax and wood.
As our world is urbanized in anthropocentric cities, remembering that we live together on Earth with other Living beings becomes essential. A cohabitation that should no longer be a utilitarian relationship of predation or exploitation, but a relationship of care and partnership.
Tawny owl
Woodpecker
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