Chiguer contemporary art is delighted to present “Le Reliquaire,” a solo exhibition by Rafael Sottolichio. Bringing together twenty works from his new series “Sic Transit,” this exhibition unveils a previously unseen body of oil paintings, inspired by photographs captured by the artist over the past twenty-five years. Drawing from his personal archives, Rafael reveals fragments of intimacy: memories of travels, landscapes, portraits, and studio scenes. Resembling a private photo album, the collection evokes, with a certain melancholy, the passage of time and the ephemeral nature of things.
The titles “The Reliquary” and “Sic Transit,” an abbreviation of the Latin phrase sic transit gloria mundi (“Thus passes the glory of the world”), are both imbued with sacred resonance. This latter expression was once pronounced during the coronation ceremonies of popes as a reminder of humility and to emphasize the vanity of earthly honors. Associated respectively with memory and the fleeting nature of existence, they highlight the spiritual dimension of our relationship to time, the world, and art.
“Having practiced photography since my youth, a passion that my father, an architect who was fascinated by image and archive, passed on to me, I was overwhelmed at age 20 by reading Susan Sontag’s ‘On Photography’ (1977), which was a true revelation for me. This text marked a turning point, finally allowing me to understand and formalize my relationship with images while triggering a self-critical reflection on the photographic that continues to drive me to this day.
Following a recent rereading, it is clear that Sontag’s ideas remain as potent as ever, but the world has changed. What perhaps moves me the most today in her text is the profoundly American spirit that emanates from it, this way of viewing the world in a total modernity, unattached to the past. It also discusses the archivist, the image collector that emerged with the advent of the consumer era, who is fascinated as much by extreme poverty as by ostentatious luxury to escape his ‘average’ condition. This photographer-hunter, always in the background, looking down, ultimately loses his grip on reality, except through the archive.”
-Rafael Sottolichio
