Opening on Thursday, May 15, from 6 to 9 PM
Exhibition from May 15 to June 14, 2025
After his acclaimed exhibitions at the Palais de Tokyo (2017) and the Ginza Hermès space in Tokyo (ATM, Homage to Thelonious Monk, 2017), Emmanuel Saulnier returns to Galerie Les filles du calvaire from May 15, 2025, with Partitions. This exhibition presents two new series of works and coincides with the publication of a monograph dedicated to the artist by Les Éditions du Regard. The book features an extensive and detailed iconography of his works and research, accompanied by texts by Frédéric Valabrègue and Daniel Dobbels.
Emmanuel Saulnier’s practice unfolds in a continuous dialogue where sculpture, drawing, and publishing intersect, where materials engage in conversation with words, and where forms interact with space. Open to the connections between disciplines, intuition, and inquiry, his work is part of an ongoing reflective exchange.
This new exhibition opens fully with Sculptures. A high and wide suspended piece of black and/or reflective leather cuts the space in two, setting the rhythm. Around it, sculptures are arranged on either side, each establishing a direct presence with the viewer, who may see their own reflection in them. These recent three-dimensional pieces, combining metal, wood, and glass, physically question the sensitive presence of materials and their mutual effects on one another. They stage a latent yet generative void.
The Inédits series gathers twelve large-format collages composed of hundreds of drawings of faces captured by the artist in public spaces across France and abroad over the past six years. Some of these drawings are interspersed with cut-outs of found and collected images. Reworked and enhanced with color in the studio, these sketches come together in monumental compositions, unfolding before the viewer and exploring the relationship between crowd and solitude, dream and memory.
About the Monograph
Partitions, featuring texts by writer Frédéric Valabrègue and choreographer and critic Daniel Dobbels, is the third volume published by Les Éditions du Regard devoted to Emmanuel Saulnier’s research and work over the past forty years. It follows Principe transparent by Jean-Pierre Greff and Luc Lang, and Conditions d’existence by Amaury Da Cunha and Doris Von Drathen.
This richly illustrated book focuses on Emmanuel Saulnier’s public commissions and international exhibitions over the past twelve years, as well as the various publications he has authored or directed. Each of these works testifies to his political commitment and engaged stance in contemporary France.
