François Xavier Saint Pierre. The Spiders and the Bees

From 12 January 2023 the Galleria del Cembalo in Rome has the pleasure of hosting in its rooms The Spiders and the Bees, a personal exhibition of the paintings by François Xavier Saint Pierre. The exhibition will complement the photographic exhibition already present in the gallery, La vie en vert by Karmen Corak, which will be extended to 18 February 2023 for the occasion.

A special event is scheduled for Thursday 19 January 2023 at 18.00 in the presence of the artist François Xavier Saint Pierre.

Born in Canada, the artist Saint Pierre has resided in Venice since 2020. The Spiders and the Bees follows the artist's recent anthological exhibition held in Toronto at the Koffler Center of Arts last winter and the first international solo exhibition held in Venice in conjunction with the 59th Art Biennale. And it is precisely in Venice that the artist got to know Karmen Corak and to find many points of contact with her: the love for Italy and for the classical age, the great sensitivity towards nature, the proximity of the artistic thinking. The desire arose to create an opportunity for their works to coexist and in the Galleria del Cembalo they found a place for this to happen.

Saint Pierre's works are influenced by modernist painting and classical and romantic topoi. The title of the exhibition recalls Jonathan Swift's satirical fable "The Bee and the Spider" – written in 1704 – which is situated in the broader context of the historical debate known as the querelle des Anciens et des Modernes (dispute of the Ancients and the Moderns ), initiated in France by a circle of French authors and artists at the court of Louis XIV. The Ancients placed importance on the roots of Greco-Roman thought and art, while the Moderns believed that technology (the compass, letterpress and firearms) made them vastly superior. Swift likened the Ancients to bees, who drew wonders from flowers, and the Moderns to spiders, who made the new out of nothing. The debate on how to look at history has been declined in different ways over the centuries, touching all aspects of European intellectual, artistic and political thought: what importance do we attach to what happened before us? Are technological developments always synonymous with a superior society? Today, for example, they are leading to a rapid decline in manual skills.

This painting serves as a reference for the artist in her exploration of past art forms, the notion of progress and what it means to be contemporary.... read the rest of the article»