Iceberg Process 5

Pierre-Alexandre Savriacouty

06.28–07.21, 2024

Presented at Tala
Curated by Stephanie Cristello

Opening Reception: Friday, June 28, 6–9pm
1644 W Chicago Ave. Chicago, IL 60622

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CHICAGO, IL—Chicago Manual Style presents the first solo exhibition of Madagascan-French artist Pierre-Alexandre Savriacouty (b. 1993 France, lives/works in Paris) in the United States, Iceberg Process 5, opening Friday, June 28, 2024, in collaboration with Tala. Amid his sculptures and two-dimensional works, Savriacouty often incorporates organic forms—from archways fabricated from the cross-section of thinly dissected shells, unveiling their fractal geometry hidden within, to works on paper embellished with dragonfly wings—alongside industrial materials such as iron, concrete, and manufactured plastics. Delving into ancestral myth and the spiritual symbolism present within material histories, Savriacouty’s work navigates themes of disappearance, memory, and identity. Guided by a series of sculptures the artist terms ‘anchors,’ assemblages made from deconstructed chandeliers that combine found industrial and natural materials selected for their ability to float or sink when submerged in water, Iceberg Process 5 presents the fifth iteration of Savriacouty’s poetic attempts to recall the past.

Straddling stability and precarity, the artist’s approach to installation navigates real and imagined gateways and portals—dragonflies belong to the world of air, but dance on the surface of water; chandeliers within domestic spaces mark the transition between day (off) and night (on). Drawn to funerary rites and narratives of the afterlife, as told in ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian myth, Savriacouty grafts elements varying interests that stem from the cyclical nature of time onto the seductive, hypnotic surfaces of his multimedia assemblages. Incorporating the scientific naming conventions used to identify and track the movement of icebergs as a metaphor for the psychic potential of objects, the exhibition engages with conventional territorial and cognitive frameworks through recent sculpture, performance, and site-specific installations.

Pierre-Alexandre Savriacouty: Iceberg Process 5 is curated by Stephanie Cristello (Director / Curator, Chicago Manual Style) and organized by Francine Almeda (Founder / Director, Tala). Savriacouty has exhibited at the Monnaie de Paris (2023), Centre d’Art Contemporain Chanot (2022), the Biennale Internationale de Saint Paul de Vence (2021), and the Frac Ile-de-France, Château de Rentilly (2020). He recently completed participation in a research program for socially engaged practice presented jointly by the Centre Pompidou (Paris), HKW (Berlin), and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània (Barcelona). He is a graduate of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris and the École des Beaux-Arts de Montpellier, where he worked for director and writer Rodrigo Garcia.

Performance

Pierre-Alexandre Savriacouty
Mon corps, dernier (2023)
30 minutes

Staged in a tableau reminiscent of Géricault’s 19th century painting The Raft of the Medusa (1818–19), Pierre-Alexandre Savriacouty’s durational performance work Mon corps, dernier (My body last) combines references of classical art history alongside gestures of endurance and material symbolism. The scenography consists of a platform that holds a series of stacked iron radiators, salvaged from buildings across Chicago, beneath a spotlight to compose a contrasting chiaroscuro atmosphere. Each of the objects and props of the performance carry a symbolic weight—clothed in white linen pants, the artist recalls portrayals of the male body within exoticist French painting, an art movement that grew out of colonial misunderstandings of the ‘other’ in reference to non-Western cultures appropriated across Europe. Placed across the installation, Rose of Jericho, a desert species of plant also known as the resurrection fern, represents cycles of death and renewal.

Beginning with the sound of whale songs, the performance unfolds against the hypnotic melodies of minor and Levantine improvisations of flautist BSA Gold. Through each, the artist’s body is transformed into a responsive mechanism whose actions are controlled by music. In response to sound, Savriacouty engages in the intense act of drinking turmeric-dyed water while in an inverted, nearly intolerable position, before resolving with a text in French by author Toni Morrison.

Generous support for the exhibition is provided in part by Les Amis des Beaux-Arts de Paris, and is the result of the SARR Prize, funded by the SARR Collection and Villa Albertine, awarded to the artist in 2021.