Johan Creten, Pliny's Sorrow

Johan Creten
Pliny's Sorrow, 2011
Resin, bronze simulation finish
450 x 450 x 190 cm
Courtesy Creten Studio and Gerrit Schreurs

Pliny's Sorrow (Pliny's Sorrow) is an eagle-like bird with enormous outstretched, broken wings and a crudely carved, hollowed back. This totemic monolith, both heroic and melancholy, indirectly illustrates a passage from Pliny the Younger If the portraits of the deceased placed in our homes relieve our grief, what can be said of their public representations: they commemorate not only their airs and features, but also their glory and honor!" *
Johan Creten's sculptures are neither monuments nor anti-monuments: the commemorative, comforting and triumphant power of "public" art, its ability to make us forget grief, remind us of what is lost and celebrate all that is glorious and grand, is both destabilized and enriched by them.The eagle, a recurring figure in Johan Creten's work, resonates with a symbolic and political dimension.

 *Pliny the Younger, English translation by William Melmoth, revised by W.M.L. Hutchinson, (1947-1952). W. Heinemann  

Text by Christopher Mooney

Born in 1963 in Saint-Trond, Belgium. Lives in Paris, France. Forerunner of the revival of ceramics in contemporary art, Johan Creten has been working itinerantly for almost forty years, from Mexico to Rome, from Miami to The Hague. Famous for his allegorical ceramic and bronze sculptures, since the 1990s Johan Creten has continued to depict a world full of poetry, lyricism and mystery.