“A book on Denis Savary is a scenario that makes it possible to document his work and put it into perspective. To achieve this, the artist has invited four art critics to contribute. Abraham Adams (USA), Stéphanie Moisdon (France) and Jan Verwoert (Germany) all present a highly personal approach to his work. Among other things, they discuss the unconscious mind, clandestine architecture and prayer (Adams); strange attractors, fetishes and replications (Moisdon); and the weather, the grotesque and magic (Verwoert). This handful of possible keywords opens up a number of avenues that echo the many fields the artist ventures into. The interview with Samuel Gross (Switzerland)—one of the most knowledgeable connoisseurs of Denis Savary's work—offers a more chronological account, which also served as the framework for the selection of illustrations. Indeed, this is intended to be a book of pictures, a visual journey through Savary's exhibitions specially put together for the occasion with the help of the Schaffter Sahli graphic design studio. The exhibition, in terms of both staging and narrative, is already a contextualisation of the work, while the book is a spatio-temporal navigation through ten years of exhibitions.”
Jean-Paul Felley & Olivier Kaeser