In a world loving selfies, discover the monumental works and biting ironic collages of Guillaume Chiron

In “Un air de famille”, the Poitevin artist Guillaume Chiron presents a gallery of portraits constructed using the collage technique. From his improbable associations of images emerge constructions full of humor which reveal the superficiality of the contemporary world. The centerpiece of the exhibition at the Château de Oiron (Deux-Sèvres), “The Cave”, presents a skull in which the visitor will wander.

“What’s this lighting like?” launches a voice from the depths of “The Cave”, one of the works presented by Guillaume Chiron at the Château de Oiron, in Deux-Sèvres, from this Saturday, October 19, in his exhibition “Un air de famille”? “It’s not bad, I think.”Chiron replies from the exhibition room, at a good distance to appreciate the rendering from visitor height.

“The Cave” appears as a skull crowned with a woman’s wig whose body is dressed in a chic sweater. The work reveals itself to be a construction, the skull, an illusion reconstructed using wooden structures cut out and arranged behind its opening, the lighting of which Guillaume Chiron finalized that day with Anthony Bonnin, a friend he met at the Confort Moderne in Poitiers and with whom he has collaborated for years.

“It is an illusionist device created in the spirit of the painting by Hans Holbein the Younger,The Ambassadors, explains Anthony Bonnin. As with the Renaissance masterpiece, the skull is an anamorphosis and is only revealed from one point of view in the exhibition, allowing for the correct alignment of perspectives.”

The effect is striking. The work stands out as one of the highlights of the exhibition. It is all the more surprising because the spectator has the possibility… to wander inside!

Through a hidden passage, an opening that lifts, the visitor slips behind the walls of the exhibition, follows a dark corridor until entering the structure of the work. From the cut wood rocks emerge, lit, to recreate the visual illusion. But inside, the spectator lives a completely different experience: he contemplates the heart of a sculpture.

“It’s not just an anamorphosiscontinues Antony Bonnin. The link is between the interior and exterior of the work.”

The installation was recreated from a three-dimensional modeling on which the artist sought “to make the first image of the hair coincide with another, more distant, magnified image. We then carried out the calculations to put each plane back into space, as if we were returning to the two-dimensional image in three dimensions”explains Guillaume Chiron.

This work benefited from creation assistance from the National Center for Plastic Arts (CNAP). The support of the CNAP demonstrates a “reconnaissance” of Chiron’s work, assures Anthony Bonnin. “It’s a tribute to Guillaume’s work. The somewhat closed world of visual arts is opening up.”

The work was created specifically for the castle that hosts it. The exhibition “Un resemblance de famille” was then imagined around, “designed for the place”too, specifies Guillaume Chiron.

“There is a coherence to having this exhibition here, adds Jean-Luc Meslet, managing director of the Château de Oiron. The question of visual games, of anamorphosis, is a structuring theme of the contemporary art collection which has been at the château for thirty years.”In particular through the works of Felice Varini or Markus Raetz.

Around “The Cave”, Guillaume Chiron develops his theme of family resemblance through a series of portraits, ideal in a castle setting, a place where the former owners hung their portraits for posterity.

The visitor, familiar with the work of Poitevin, rediscovers his appetite for editing. Using the collage technique, he combines two images to suggest a link or another narrative. In an era where selfies and self-presentation on social networks are king, the series exudes positive and funny energy. A series of men’s faces with broad smiles, from an advertisement for an insurance company, see another image of a fireplace superimposed on their mouths. Thus was born the series “Inner Fires” with strong hilarious potential.

The fireplace, also an echo of castle life. The more grandiose they appear, the more they assert social status. Chiron has fun with it and offers a monumental version, with a real fireplace inlaid in the work. There were none in the attic of the castle which hosts the exhibition.

Like “The Cave”, Guillaume Chiron’s portraits invite a mental journey and sometimes the exploration of a psychological dimension. The whole thing, coherent, is often funny. The surprise, each time, a delight.

“Un resemblance de famille” by Guillaume Chiron, in collaboration with Anthony Bonnin. At the Château de Oiron, in Deux-Sèvres, from October 19 to December 31, 2024.