"Let us have contempt of any subjection,
    We, the sons of the vast universe, [...]
    Lords of the world, will go as we please
    Wherever we please, free of all control."¹

I am writing this text at the end of July, beginning of August 2022, after having read the very beautiful novel Bartleby by Herman Melville, with the powerful afterword by Gilles Deleuze (about which it would be interesting to write also a small text). This reading strongly moved me and touched my deepest self and destabilized me. Perhaps, without a doubt, because of the beauty of the character, this Bartleby, refusing the world and who goes away, towards his death, without saying anything, without eating, without a complaint...

1  The Encatadas, The Barrington Island & the Buccaneers, Herman Melville

Conference given by the artist Jean-Pierre Sergent during his exhibition: Polyphonies : Arts, Cultures & Civilizations on May 15, 2022. He talks about his artistic work and the traditional and ancient cultures that have largely influenced him. Filmed by Lionel Georges, transcriptions by Karine Joyerot. - See the videos

1/4 : I, THE INFLUENCES AND THE APPEARANCE OF EXTRA EUROPEAN ARTS IN MY WORK, NEW YORK YEARS (1993-2003)
Hello everyone, thank you for coming here to this beautiful Galerie de l'Orangerie. Christine Herrgott, who is a childhood friend of mine, welcomes us and I am going to give you a presentation with some of my works in relation to cultures that have interested me during my career. I've lived in New York quite a bit, I've also traveled to Mexico, Guatemala and I'm interested in a lot of cultures, what we call the 'primitive' (root) cultures, before we called them 'archaic' cultures. So this is how it will be: the conference is entitled: "Polyphonies: arts, cultures and civilizations"...

20 new photos of the interview between Jean-Pierre Sergent and Nicolas Surlapierre, Director of the Museum, they discuss about his mural installation : The four pillars of the sky (80 m2) at the Museum of Fine Arts and Archaeology of Besançon. Photos taken on June 30, 2022 by Christine Chatelet.

20 new photos of the shooting of the interview between Jean-Pierre Sergent and Thierry Savatier (Art Historian and world specialist of Gustave Courbet's work). They exchange about the great mural installations of the artist at the Museum of Fine Arts and Archaeology of Besançon. Photos taken by Christine Chatelet on July 2nd 2021.

Jean-Pierre Sergent talks with Nicolas Surlapierre, the Museum director, about his mural installation : The Four Pillars of Heaven (80 m2) at the MBAA of Besançon. Filmed on June 30, 2022, cameras Lionel Georges and Christine Chatelet.

DEFEATING DEATH OR THE PARADOXICAL THOUGHT

"These monks here will not conquer death, because they believe in death." Mystics and magicians of Tibet, Alexandra David-Néel

It is the same for Art: to defeat Art, one must never, yes, never, never again, believe in it! JPS, Notes 2022

Jean-Pierre Sergent talks with Nicolas Surlapierre, the Museum director, about his mural installation : The Four Pillars of Heaven (80 m2) at the MBAA of Besançon. Filmed on June 30, 2022, cameras Lionel Georges and Christine Chatelet.

THE PRESENCE OF THE SACRED, THE SAVAGE & THE TANTRIC RITUAL

BOOK : CONJUNCTIONS AND DISJUNCTIONS, OCTAVIO PAZ 
"Eve and prajnâpâramitâ
The oppositions between Tantrism and Protestantism are of the type light and shadow, heat and cold, white and black. Both are grappling with the insoluble conflict between body and mind (emptiness for the Buddhist) and both resolve it by exaggeration." 
(It's the same as in my painting!)

Jean-Pierre Sergent talks with Nicolas Surlapierre, the Museum director, about his mural installation : The Four Pillars of Heaven (80 m2) at the MBAA of Besançon. Filmed on June 30, 2022, cameras Lionel Georges and Christine Chatelet.

LIBERATOR & SALVATOR ART (for the artist and for the public?)

"I have often been called a decadent. I have a very favorable opinion of decadence, as Thomas Mann had for example. I am imbued with this decadence. What has always interested me is the examination of a sick society." Luchino Visconti

Jean-Pierre Sergent talks with Nicolas Surlapierre, the Museum director, about his mural installation : The Four Pillars of Heaven (80 m2) at the MBAA of Besançon. Filmed on June 30, 2022, cameras Lionel Georges and Christine Chatelet.

INTRODUCTION
"I'm not here to fit into your world! I'm here to protect mine!" Apache proverb

"Since the WW2 war, the culture has kind of fallen apart. All over the world. And the spiritual level too. [...] Today, more than ever, we must safeguard everything that has a link, however tenuous, with the spiritual." The Sealed Time, Andreï Tarkovski

THE COMPOSITE MONUMENTAL WORK (THE CENTER AND THE MARGIN)

- I, THE INFLUENCES AND APPEARANCE OF EXTRA-EUROPEAN ARTS IN MY WORK, NEW-YORK YEARS (1993-2003)
- I-1, The preparatory sketches & drawings, New-York, (1995-2003)
- I-2, The "Beauty is Energy" series, New-York, (2002)
- I-2, The series "Beauty is Energy", New-York, (2002), after September 11, 2001, Art, Violence, Sex and Death
- I-3, Tribute to the Selknam, Alakalufs and Haush Indians of Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia
- I-4, Egypt, beauty, woman and offering in opposition to violence...

2nd PART : - II, THE INDIVIDUALISTIC AND MATERIALISTIC IMPOSTURE, THE CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUAL DEFICIT, THE ONLY MATERIALISTIC AND PORNOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF RITUALS, NATURE & TRANSE

- II - 1, The Fashion industry
- II - 2, The rituals of the 'first' societies
- II - 3, The lathe and the sacred painting
- II - 4, The Whole and Archaism...

- III, HOPE IN ART AND IN LIFE, REINTEGRATION OF COSMIC ENERGY AND NATURE THROUGH SEXUAL ENERGY
- III-1, Current works: the series of "Shakti-Yoni, Ecstatic Cosmic Dances", (2017-2021)
- III-2, The Aztecs and Mayas of Mexico and Guatemala, the skulls of the dead and the axis mundi
- III-3, Benares India, spirituality-eternity...

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS with the public...

Movie of a canoeing trip in the Doubs Basins, the River that forms the border between Switzerland and France. The artist presents the place where he often goes canoeing. We discover the beauty of nature, the timeless presence of rocks and the changing fluidity of the river and in spring time, the powerful renewal of nature. 

Coming to see an exhibition at the Orangery of Sauvigney-lès-Gray is an experience that invites you to take time, the time taken to go to a place that is worth the detour, but also to contemplate contemporary works.
Until June 6, the place welcomes paintings by Jean-Pierre Sergent. Originally from the region where he studied Fine Arts after a school of architecture in Strasbourg, he flew to Montreal and then New York to develop his imagination on canvas for ten years...

354 new photos of the art prints completed during 2021 of the serie Shakti-Yoni: Ecstatic Cosmic Dances, printed mainly in unique prints, acrylic hand silk-screened and Indian ink on yellow Wang 80g paper, unframed size dimensions: 25,5 x 25,5 cm / 10''x10''.

369 New photos of the art prints completed during 2021 of the série Shakti-Yoni: Ecstatic Cosmic Dances, printed mainly in unique prints, acrylic hand silk-screened and Indian ink on white BFK 250g paper, unframed size dimensions: 25,5 x 25,5 cm / 10''x10''.

Photos-Portraits shoots by professional photographers presenting the artist completing different steps of the silk-screening process in order to continue his series of the Shakti-Yoni: Ecstatic Cosmic Dances at his Besançon Studio's during the Summer and Fall 2021.

- 1-27, Photos by Alice Marc, June 26 2021
- 28-61 & 104-133, Photos by Lionel Franck Georges, August 27 & October 11 2021
- 62-103, photos by Christine Chatelet, September 3 2021

448 new photos showing the artist at work in his studio during 2021, completing the different steps of the silkscreening process in order to continue his new series of the Shakti-Yoni: Ecstatic Cosmic Dances.
Unique prints, acrylic hand silkscreened on yellow Wang Sketching paper 80g & white B.F.K. Rives paper, 280g, 25,5 x 25,5 cm / 10''x10''.

“The arts and rituals of the ancient civilizations seem to him much more adapted, more complete, concrete and just, in front of and towards the complex realities of our cosmic self and of our human, individual and collective destinies: birth-death of every human being and of every civilization, sexuality being obviously the link and the starting point of all this. And violence, too, because life always feeds on life, even when fully vegetarian, it can only be so.” 

From past to future

Taking as a sort of incipit to his exhibition Hermann Hesse's sentence: "When you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What is not part of ourselves does not bother us", Jean-Pierre Sergent creates since his works made in New York, after his Mexican trips and the attack of September 11, 2001, an energy and he adds "an aesthetic, karmic, sexual violence".
Everything seems to resurface from the depths, from archaic times, wild in fusion with existence...

Presentation of about twenty works on paper and a large Plexiglas painting inspired by ancient and traditional cultures.
Opening hours: Saturdays and Sundays from 10 am to 7 pm and during the week by appointment
Opening: Saturday, April 23 from 2pm
Conference: Sunday, May 15 at 4:30 pm (reservation required)
Meeting with the artist : Saturday May 28 at 3pm

This Pitch-Art video is presenting a miscellaneous selection from small works on paper of the "Shakti-Yoni: Ecstatic Cosmic Dances" series. Monoprints, acrylic hand silkscreened on yellow Wang paper 80g (25,5 x 25,5 cm / 10''x10''), printed during Summer and Fall 2021.

This Pitch-Art video is presenting a miscellaneous selection from small works on paper of the "Shakti-Yoni: Ecstatic Cosmic Dances" series. Monoprints, acrylic hand silkscreened on yellow Wang paper 80g (25,5 x 25,5 cm / 10''x10''), printed during Summer and Fall 2021.

This Pitch-Art video is presenting a miscellaneous selection from small works on paper of the "Shakti-Yoni: Ecstatic Cosmic Dances" series. Monoprints, acrylic hand silkscreened on yellow Wang paper 80g (25,5 x 25,5 cm / 10''x10''), printed during Summer and Fall 2021.

This pitch-art video is presenting a miscellaneous selection from small works on paper of the "Shakti-Yoni: Ecstatic Cosmic Dances" series. Monoprints, acrylic hand silkscreened on white B.F.K. Rives paper 250g (25,5 x 25,5 cm / 10''x10''), printed during Summer and Fall 2021.

Solo exhibition of works on paper by Jean-Pierre Sergent during the month of January 2022. Curated by Niyara Useinova and Heidi Suter (Keller Galerie, Zürich).

Pitch-art video showing some photos of work in progress on the silkscreen frames used for the printing of the new "Shakti-Yoni: Ecstatic Cosmic Dances" series, September 3rd 2021.

Pitch-art video showing some photos of work in progress on the silkscreen frames used for the printing of the new "Shakti-Yoni: Ecstatic Cosmic Dances" series, June 21st 2021.

Page presenting new excerpts gleaned and recovered from quotes, aphorisms and short sentences of artists, writers and philosophers appearing daily on Twitter Home Page in 2021. They are a bit like in Ella Maillart's Snippets of Wisdom, who said in her beautiful book: "Europe is still going in the wrong direction. Our civilization based on money is worthless. It's not money that counts, it's the spirit. Money kills the spirit." These are fragments of thoughts, little fireflies lighting our drifting humanity and warming our hearts, as in that simple phrase uttered by Ichi: "Anyone deprived of warmth ends up freezing to death." Excerpt from the film: Ichi, The Samurai Woman by Fumihiko Sori.