Tribute Pierre Molinier

Our society, clinging to its judeo-christian morality like an oyster to its rock, does not easily welcome transgressive aesthetes or decadent poets, which explains why it took so long for Pierre Molinier (1900 - 1976) to be recognized as a herald of fetichism, and not just an indecent and obscure provocateur. At first a house painter, he also practiced art, but in the 1950's he turned away from representational paintings ; he approached surrealism, notably with his mythical Le Grand Combat (The Big Fight) which already featured carnal eroticism with its maze of entwined bodies. André Breton, a fervent admirer who even nicknamed Molinier the "master of vertigo", exhibited some of his work, though he later distanced himself, afraid of his overly pornographic themes. In the 60's Molinier finds the themes that will build his legend. He portraits himself in photos with his body crossdressed and shaved, raw images where he experiments with numerous accessories - black lingerie, masks and dildoes - in a style reminiscent of the Roaring Twenties. Molinier is already questioning genre theories by inventing a new Eve for a new era, combining femininity and the flaunting of his male genitals. He enjoys using dolls, setting up outlandish sex scenes, that recall Hans Bellmer's disarticulated dolls. The notorious Emmanuelle Arsan will also serve as his model for a series of mythical photos typical of his visual style. An essential part of his work are his extraordinary photomontages highlighting his obsession with legs, using kaleidoscopic mirror effects where faces and thighs meld, constructing strange erotic stars and mutant creatures.

A pioneer of performance and body art, he exhibits his paradoxal sexuality, in a joyous but also morbid way. Because his art breaks traditional barriers, he is a metaphysical artist, setting his seminal energy at the center of his work to the point of blowing out his brains when he felt it was waning. After the ultimate orgasm, he closed the circle. "It bores me to death to go on living and I voluntarily take my life with a laugh. In his two last letters he tells " all the assholes who shat on me all my life to go fuck themselves" and "heartily kisses all the people he loves".

After letting us rediscover him last year in his Étienne O’Leary Chromo Sud carte blanche, in which Molinier appeared, and 55 years after featuring Molinier by Pierre Borde at the festival in Bordeaux he organized with Alain Nantais, Jean-Pierre Bouyxou returns to present this tribute program in which Molinier appears both as an artist and an actor : both subject and object, such as he always was. No doubt a major event.