Ceysson & Bénétière

 

Bernard Pagès does. Irresistibly. He builds and he conceives. Ceaselessly. Every single day, the sculptor does. Relentlessly. Summer or winter, Sunday or Monday, day or night, he does, he heads to his work, his labor, his shed, his duty. It's not a stance, even less a posture, it's a nature: to do, undo, redo, perfect, and do again. Doing: Bernard Pagès knows nothing else. Nothing else to do but do, to do his work, to chart his course, to roll his rock like others roll their lot. Sisyphus, no doubt. Prometheus, unquestionably.

It's not simple to do, to do without preamble, to do without pretense, to do as Bernard Pagès does, with enthusiasm and vigor, as if that, precisely, were self-evident. His body bears the mark. His body (I could say his conformation) is in motion, is a movement. Movement towards – the workshop, the rock, the tool, the word, the other. Everything in him does. Everything: his hands, his legs, his cap, his elbows, his accent. I see in him a wild desire to grapple – with time, with the world, with the compactness of matter, with the burden of desire, with himself, with what remains to be done, with what could be done, with what would have been done if, with what is about to be done. The center of gravity of his body, akin to that of heliotropic flowers inclined toward the naked star, is slightly off-center. Bernard Pagès, like some of his "leans," leans toward what is to come and to be done, and which has nothing to do with the future and business, with anticipation and bustling activity. [...]

Doing, truly doing, I mean without hesitation, implies a necessity. One doesn't do just to do. One does because one cannot do otherwise. Some will say that Bernard Pagès springs into action, I believe that, sleeves rolled up amidst the shavings and bolts, he acts.

Colin Lemoine, excerpt from Bernard Pagès, Homo Faber, 2020.

 

Artist : Bernard Pagès

---

Visitor Information

Ceysson & Bénétière
21 rue Longue
69001 Lyon

Gallery hours:
Tuesday - Saturday
11am - 6pm
T: +33 4 27 02 55 20