Raphaël Barontini, À la cour d’Henri Christophe, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.
Raphaël Barontini, storyteller
Raphaël Barontini and his current exhibition Quelque part dans la nuit, le peuple danse at Palais de Tokyo is the subject of a dedicated article titled Raphaël Barontini, raconteur d’histoires by Véronique Bouruet-Aubertot.
"Noticed for his exhibition and performance "We Could Be Heroes" at the Panthéon in 2023, the French artist Raphaël Barontini, at the age of 40, inaugurates his first major exhibition in Paris. Spanning nearly four hundred square meters, it includes two-thirds of new pieces specially produced and is made up of two distinct spaces: one simulating the interior of a palace, the other a crowd in costumes.
Trained at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, the artist, "storyteller" as he likes to define himself, builds visual narratives revisiting post-colonial history. Working by juxtaposing images, he produces large textile pieces that combine painting, silkscreen prints, digital prints, and embroidery, in an aesthetic close to collage. Here, with a title borrowed from the work of Aimé Césaire, he weaves a new narrative around the figure of Henri Christophe, a general of the Haitian revolution and self-proclaimed king."
Excerpted words written by Véronique Bouruet-Aubertot for Connaissance des Arts.
