Sine Fine (Benoît Barbagli)
Life beneath the chaos, 2021
by Pulchérie Gadmer
Benoît Barbagli’s studio is vast. Ocean, river and mountain are his performative spaces. Art arises there, a vital emergence within the collective. His plural and multi-medium proposals hatch in itinerant gestures. Art moves in nature.
In his peripatetic devices, the path makes sense, the nudity is candid, and the work manifests itself in upsurges. The configurations are multiple, the rituals varied and, often, the expedition that leads to the artistic experience is done with visual artists. His camera is described as “flying”. It passes from hand to hand and the signature is frequently shared or collective.
Benoît Barbagli explores borders. He draws from the substrate of creation in search of its germinations from shared nourishment. The Mountain creates as much as the sea, as the artist friend, by his presence, by his movement, by the principle of life, essentially random, which moves him. Art captures moments of the Living which always manifests itself where we least expect it, in unheard-of sequences that we sometimes struggle to capture in their deployments. With humor, lightness, strength and delicacy, Barbagli invites us to capture the moments and encourages us to consider them in their ephemeral beauty. An ode to Vitality.
The four elements are recurring. They animate and structure the artist’s series in Heraclitean bursts. Fire, water, air, earth. Benoît Barbagli’s universe is poetic, polysemous, modest, funny. He likes to “divert references from culture to return them to nature.” What makes a work? The project ? Its manifestations? He orchestrates meetings, a community is created around the project and the creative space then becomes a joyful pretext for life.
To pay homage to the living, to restore its place to it, the artist fades away, he stages, stages and yet fades with great elegance, the ego dissolves in the interconnected, I is another. Benoît Barbagli is reverse romanticism. His return to nature takes place in a peaceful setting where egotism is annihilated, where praise is stripped of pomp, where art emerges in its simplest expression.
In the Mediterranean Sea in winter, a hand holds out a bouquet in the icy water, the fertile sea is also deadly lately. Eros and Thanatos come together, amorous ardor and mortuary homage are two sides of the same mirror. In an attempt at love by torchlight, a naked body throws itself off a cliff, tomb of the diver or inextinguishable passion? The moment is in suspense, an unresolved space subject to the projections of the viewer. Grace, fall and rebound – or not, are part of the whole thing. Bodies carry a stone under the troubled surface of a lake, the emergence of a new Atlantis or the Sisyphean perspective of an inevitable landslide after yet another attempt? The artist and his acolytes bring their stone to the visual edifice.
Benoît Barbagli is the sherpa of the mountain, he transports his paintings there so that the latter can create. He removes the museumification of the woman’s body by returning it to the earth. He picks up the spark igniting the beam. He walks on the Anthropocene by questioning the stars, born of chaos.
Benoît Barbagli born in 1988 in Nice. He lives and works between Paris and Nice.
Personal exhibitions
2022
All around, the water
Galerie Eva Vautier, Nice
2022
Origin of joy
Galerie Epi ,Ingrande-sur-loire
2022
New Wave
Palazzo Saluzzo Paesana, Turin, Italy
2021
Under Chaos Life
Galerie Mansard, Paris
2021
The sea at work
Espace culturel de Port-Lympia, Nice
2021
Ecotopia – Interview,
Château de la Napoule, Mandelieu-la-Napoule
2020
90° above the fire
Windsor Hotel, Nice
2020
Alive
Château de la Napoule, Mandelieu-la-Napoule
2015
Telepathy room
SuperVue, Hotel Burrhus, Vaison-la-Romaine
2015
In a second of inspiration
Exterior facade of MAMAC and TNN, Nice
Exhibition produced as part of the Réveillons-Nous festival organized by Irina Brook
2015
A sort of metaphor for (planet) Earth
Paris 18th
Exhibition produced in partnership with the Association Diameter, Traveling Gallery
2015
Here the earth
Rosalina, Nice
Exhibition created as part of a Botox(s) event
Duo exhibitions
2022
Aleas
curated by Alain Jaquet, exhibition in apartment with Jacque Renoir
2018
Emosophia
curated by Caterina Zevola Open Bach, Paris (with Bertrand Lanthiez)
2017
Behind the Sea
Galerie de Beuil, Beuil (with Anne-laure Wuillai)
Exhibitions with the Palam Collective
2021
Orées
Villa Cameline, Nice
2020
Under the ice the water
Caisse d’épargne de Nice Masséna, Nice,
2020
In the presence of
Chapelle Sainte-Elisabeth, Villefranche-sur-Mer
2019
Azimuth
Galerie Eva Vautier, Nice, and the FRAC PACA as part of Des marches et démarches
Collective exhibitions
2022
A rose is a petinua is a mimosa
Galerie Eva vautier, Nice
2021
The horizon
Galerie Eva Vautier Hors les Murs, La menuiserie, La Motte-Servolex
2020
With pleasure III
Galerie Eva Vautier, Nice
2020
Voila l’été
La station, Nice
2020
Fire walk with me
Musée d’art Naif, Nice
2018
With pleasure II
Eva Vautier Gallery, Nice
2019
Nopoto
BelOeil, Nice
2019
Building
villa Le Roc Fleury, Cap d’Ail
2019
Life is a film
109, Nice
2019
100 titles
BelOeil, Nice
2018
With pleasure
Eva Vautier Gallery, Nice
2018
Memory and the sea
curated by Rebecca François, Nice
2018
Private Choice
curated by Nadia Candet, Paris
2018
A collection 5
curated by Camille Frasca, Paris
2017
Rien ne se perd….
curated by Camille Frasca, Paris
2017
A collection
curated by Camille Frasca, Nice
2016
An ideal palace for strange egos
Palais idéal du facteur Cheval, Hauterives
2016
Prefiguration of the ideal palace of strange egos
Palais idéal du facteur Cheval, Hauterives
2015
Odyssey
Galerie La Marine, Nice
Exhibition organized by Villa Arson, 2015 graduate students
2014
Competent bodies
Villa Arson Art Center, Nice
2013
Work in progress
Eva Vautier Gallery, Nice
Group exhibition and curatorship organized in partnership with Eva Vautier
2013
Manca
performative concert, MAMAC, Nice
Performance /Workshops/ Residences
2019
Polychrome
Utopia residence, Ponte-Leccia, Haute-Corse
2018
School of Nice – From Pop Art to Happenings
Hong-Kong, French May 2018, direction of a workshop on performance art as a representative of the School of Nice.
2013
Avatar
workshop, École d’art de l’Université Laval, Québec, directed by Pascal Broccolichi and Julie Faubert
2012-2013,
Des corps compétents
workshops, HEAD, Génève, Switzerland under the direction of Arnaud
Label Rojoux, Patrice Blouin and Christophe Kihm
2011
Fluxus concerts and performances
Performance at MoMA (Newyork City) with Ben Vautier Foires
2019 DrawingNow, Paris, Galerie Eva Vautier,
2018 ArtParis, Paris, Galerie Bertheas,
Permanent presentation
Bertheas Gallery, Vichy, Saint-Etienne, Paris
Eva Vautier Gallery, Nice
Publications
2022
All around, water
Ecological and social manifesto for the exhibition
All around, water
2022 Nouvelle Vague, Exhibition catalog
2019 Ecotopia, book about the ecotopia project
2014 Ici la terre, le mémoire, Graduation thesis directed by Joseph Mouton and Thomas Golsen, Villa Arson, Nice
2014
Ici la terre, the expedition
Co-publication for the Ici la terre project, with texts by Tristan Blumel
Trainings
2015, DNSEP, Villa Arson, National School of Fine Arts of Nice
2013, DNAP, Villa Arson, National School of Fine Arts of Nice
2011, License III Philosophy, University of Nice Sophia Antipolis
Registered at the Maison des Artistes, siret number: 79392808600016
Collective exhibitions
Duo exhibitions
2020 OceanBloom, Iliana Tounda, Athens, Greece (with Eri Dimitriali)
2018 Emosophia, Open Bach, Paris
2017 Behind the Sea, Galerie de Beuil, Beuil
Exhibitions with the Palam Collective:
2021 Villa Cameline, Nice
2020 Voyage at Sea, Sainte-Elisabeth Chapel, Villefranche-sur-Mer
Personal exhibitions:
2015 Telepathy chamber – SuperVue, Hotel Burrough, Vaison-la-Romaine
2015 In a second of inspiration, MAMAC, Nice
Exhibition produced as part of the Réveillons-Nous festival organized by Irina Bro
2015 A kind of metaphor like the (planet) Earth, Paris
Exhibition produced in partnership with the Association Diameter, Traveling Gallery
2015 DNSEP, Life, Villa Arson, 2015
2015 Here the earth, Evening visitors, Rosalina, Nice
Exhibition created as part of a Botox(s) event
Main collective exhibitions:
2019 Building, villa Le Roc Fleury, Cap d’Ail
2019 Life is a Movie
2019 100 titles, Nice
2018 With pleasure , Eva Vautier Gallery, Nice
2018 Memory and the sea, Nice
2018 Private Choice , curated by Nadia Candet, Paris
2018 A collection 5, curated by Camille Frasca, Paris
2017 A collection , curated by Camillle Frasca, Nice
2016 An ideal palace of strange egos, Postman Cheval’s ideal palace, Hauterives
2014 Competent bodies, Villa Arson
2013 Work in progress, Eva Vautier Gallery,
2018 Private Choice , curated by Nadia Candet, Paris
2017 Nothing is lost…. , curated by Camillle Frasca, Paris
2017 A collection , curated by Camillle Frasca, Nice
2016 An ideal palace of strange egos, Postman Cheval’s ideal palace, Hauterives
2015 Odyssey , La Marine Gallery, Nice
Exhibition organized by Villa Arson – graduate students 2015
2014 Competent Bodies, Villa Arson Art Center, Nice
2013 Work in progress , Eva Vautier Gallery, Nice
Group exhibition and curatorship organized in partnership with Eva Vautier
Performance /Workshops/ Residences
2019 Polychrome , Utopia residence, Ponte-Leccia, Haute-Corse
2018 School of Nice – From Pop Art to Happenings , Hong-Kong, French May 2018, direction of a workshop on performance as a representative of the School of Nice.
2013 Avatar, workshops, Laval University School of Art, Quebec, Direction Pascal Brocolichi and Julie Faubert
2013 Manca, performance concert, MAMAC, Nice
2012-2013 , Competent bodies, workshops, HEAD, Geneva, Switzerland under the direction of Arnaud Label Rojoux, Patrice Blouin and Christophe Kihm
2011 FLUXUS concert – MOMA performance with Ben Vautier
Permanent presentation
Bertheas Gallery , Vichy, Saint Etienne, Paris
Eva Vautier Gallery , Nice
Fairs:
Auction:
Address:
Benoit Barbagli
41 Route de Saint -Pancrace.
06100
Nice
