Reinhard Scheibner & Patrick Jannin : Masquerade ball

Two universes meet in a disturbing journey through the body, desire, and its metamorphoses. Hybrid figures, shifting identities, animal or mythological presences compose a theater where beauty emerges as much as it disturbs. Uncanny strangeness, raw sensuality, the works oscillate between attraction and unease, summoning imaginaries where the mask becomes revelation. Patrick Jannin Patrick Jannin, born in 1971, delivers to us, through an abundant and protean body of work, a most disturbing vision of the world, or to use the Freudian expression, one of uncanny strangeness. This worshiper of beauty has over the years built a world apart, on the fringes of trends and artistic currents, in which man, fallen and condemned since the dawn of time to perpetual hell, rubs shoulders – as if to make his ugliness and baseness felt even more, if need be – with creatures of striking beauty, women with animal heads or animals with dream bodies, goddesses straight out of ancient myths, which were called barbaric and then condemned in order to install in the minds of men a symbol of death and existential void, a vengeful god, the lying god. As for truth, in this painter's work, it is found, quite simply, for those who know how to open their eyes to the world around them, on a tree branch or under the thickets of an equatorial forest, in the form of the Stag or the Robin, the Hyena or the Zebra. So many animal-symbols, so many totems marking the existence of one who aspires to go higher, further, and deeper, and all carriers of the same energy, all beautiful and luminous, even in their darkness and cruelty, for that is how Nature made them. So yes, this is how one can see the universe of Jannin: a world with three entrances, where each medium (drawing, photography, and painting) brings with it its own questions but also, in the end, THE answer: beauty. Beauty as a quest, beauty as a bulwark against the stupidity inherent in men, beauty as a source of light, necessary for life itself. Reinhard Scheibner Reinhard Scheibner (born in 1953 in Bamberg, lives and works in Berlin) is a German artist who excels primarily in painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, photography, and video. Scheibner's universe is composed around strong and disturbing sexual scenes. The viewer's gaze is intentionally troubled, confronted with bodies that transcend traditional gender categories. The characters, often depicted naked or in exhibitionist postures, express an explicit and uninhibited sexuality. The general atmosphere remains dark and disturbing. Despite some smiling expressions, a malaise persists, placing the viewer in a position of vulnerability in the face of these dominant and assertive figures. The result is a strong erotic charge, mixed with sometimes disturbing visual references, where desire can be associated with a form of transgression, a recurring theme in the Western erotic imagination. In the end, Scheibner's universe appears contrasted, oscillating between a provocative aesthetic, representations of marginalized sexualities, and intimate scenes exploring identities and desires outside established norms.