Fabienne Verdier : Le Chant Des Étoiles = The Song Of Stars

Exhibition at the Musée d'Unterlinden, Colmar, 1 October 2022 - 27 March 2023

In 1983, Fabienne Verdier (1962-) left for China, where she spent ten years learning the art of painting and calligraphy from the last great painters of the Cultural Revolution. In her work, she explores the dynamism of the forces of nature through her knowledge of the techniques and traditions of Western and Eastern art. The artist paints her abstract works in ink vertically, standing on her stretchers, with giant brushes and tools of her own invention hanging from the ceiling of her studio.

This monographic work is the catalogue of the exhibition at the Musée d'Unterlinden, in which Fabienne Verdier's works interact not only with the museum's collections of ancient and modern art, but also with the architectural space - designed by Herzog & de Meuron - that houses them.

The catalogue provides an opportunity to explore the unprecedented link that the artist has established between her monumental work and Matthias Grünewald's Issenheim Altarpiece, drawing on the chromatic spectrum and the aura of light that distinguish the German master's painting. The large-scale installation Rainbows plays a central role in the publication: these 66 works inspired by the luminous aura produced by the death of a star are conceived as individuals, each of which bears a title that underlines its link with the sky, the stars and light.