OPENING ON SATURDAY THE 24TH OF JANUARY, 2009 FROM 11:00 AM TO 07:00 PM

Ornaments, crimes and delights is the next exhibition which will be held at the Espace Claude
Berri. The title of this exhibition by the french artist Stéphane Calais echoes back a set of
« sculptures-collages » which was recently shown in Brussels at aliceday gallery.

These composite items are often made of macramés, basketballs and feather among other
sorts of materials. These objects, often called syncretic by the artist, first appear in his
work in 1995 with L’or de la défaite then in 1997 with Le mariage de la carpe et du lapin. They
bring together varied temporalities and cultural spaces.

Throughout his exhibition, Stéphane Calais will show a new set of « sculptures-collages »
which find themselves specifically created for the space. The artist will entirely take up the
Espace, from the facade up to the back wall, by using black and « impure » monochromic
flat tints and colored patterns.
The saturation of the material is felt throughout the colors, the shapes as well as the
silkscreen print on which Stéphane Calais has overlayed faces that tend to disappear.

Therefore, the ornament has to be understood as an object but also as masking, a decoy
or a concealment while the crimes and the delights are themselves intimately related to
the history of design.
This quote illustrates the topic of the exhibition : « Stéphane Calais creates a genetically modified
space in which reality and imagery are consubstantially related »*.

* Jean de Loisy, excerpt from the catalogue of the Marcel Duchamp Prize 2008.

Solo shows (selection)
2009 Ornements, crimes et délices, Espace Claude berri
Galerie Zieher Smith, New York
2008 L’Amour, Crédac, Ivry/Seine
Habiller le “e”, galerie Aliceday, Bruxelles
Espace d’arts plastiques, Vénissieux
2007 Le Style, galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris

Group shows (selection)
2009 La force de l’art, Paris
2008 Less is less, More is More, that’s All, CAPC, Bordeaux
Point of no return, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin
2007 Airs de Paris, MNAM Centre Georges Pompidou,
Dérives, fondation d’entreprise Ricard, Paris

Monographic Publications
2005 Gardens are for people ! (&art for us ?), Abbaye de
Maubuisson, Filigranes
2002 Boxe thaï, Centre d’art contemporain la Synagogue de
Delme, ed. HMX
1999 Milk and..., Herzliya museum of art, Israel / AFAA
1997 S. Calais, le collège/FRAC Champagne-Ardenne /
Galerie M. Rein
1994 L’I.A.F.B., Drac Champagne-Ardenne