Catalog published on the occasion of the solo-exhibition of Johan Creten "8 GODS" at the Almine Rech Gallery in Brussels.

The catalog “8 GODS”, published with the Almine Rech Gallery, Brussels, was designed as a sensitive book. It unveils an unprecedented series of 8 sculptures: 8 male and/or female gods in ancient postures, in resonance with the sacred figures on which the artist worked for 2 years. Creating his own mythology Johan Creten reveals his Pantheon to us. Each sculpture is highlighted by a poem by Colin Lemoine, art historian, independent curator and curator of the sculpture department of the Bourdelle Museum.

The book also presents the entire series of “Wargames” initiated in 2015. These “Wargames” or “War Games”, oscillate between abstraction and figuration and summon a hybrid insect's figure, between fly and bee. Some will see it as an evocation of battle plans, geopolitical maps, questioning our own relationship to the world.

“He tilts his head, which weighs heavy. Because of the dirty thoughts, the dirtied thoughts. Because of what just happened, perhaps. For this body could not be yellow naturally. Consider his pink thighs: he has just been soiled. The colour is not finery, it is an injury. It is an insult made to this adolescent body, because adolescent. Because he's not yet a man, because he's still a boy. No longer really a child, not yet a man. Boy. Ragazzo. An ephebe punished for his beauty, through his beauty. Chastised by Naples yellow. A Pasolinian idol that emerged out of some wasteland, some seedy corner, some underground, some night, some place. A straw idol, a sulphury idol. A suffering idol. A figure smeared with oripeau, that simulacrum of gold, that ‘yellow bronze’ as the ancients called it. Oripeau, aurea pellis: gold and skin in a single word, on a single body. The colour of leprosy, the colour of the sun, the boy tries to remain standing. He is still alive, despite being embalmed by paint. Still life.”  

• TEXTS
  Colin Lemoine
  Translation: Patrick Lennon
  Language: French/English

• FORMAT
  28 x 31,5 cm

  French format
  151 pages

• BINDING
  Modern matt coated paper 170 g/m²
  Book sewn on cardboard square back, printed in HUV Offset

• PRINT
  Albe De Coker

• COPIES
  1st  printed edition of 1.500 copies

• ISBN 978-2-930573-23-6

• Published by
  Almine Rech Gallery