Brazilian artist Saint Clair Cemin returns to Galerie Daniel Templon with an astonishing installation of over 100 sculptures exploring themes that evoke Balzac: disillusion and the vicissitudes of existence.

For his latest exhibition, the artist has created a unique universe comprising sculptures of all sizes created from materials as varied as plaster, marble, wood and gilt bronze. With their numerous literary references to love and death, the works speak of how human feelings are kindled and how they deviate, of the being’s endless and futile quest to attain a “better” state which is nothing more than an illusion.

Saint Clair Cemin puts it this way: “Misery and splendour go hand-in-hand. Every form is at once splendid in terms of its existence, and miserable in terms of its disappearance. Everything that appears is destined to vanish, and the beauty and freshness of youth quickly give way to aging and death. It’s a terrible cliché, the confrontation between love and death, growth and decline. But all great literature and art is founded on this cliché. What I am attempting to create using this long sequence of sculptures is no more than our world.”