Antoine Wagner - Growth

ANTOINE WAGNER - Growth (2024)

Chromogenic Print
Edition of 5 + 2 AP
60,6 x 40,9 inches
154 x 104 cm
Solid Wood Frame
AWPH2024.007


ANTOINE WAGNER
MARIA CALLAS

Multidisciplinary artist Antoine Wagner, showcases a series of photographs capturing the curtains that adorned opera houses graced by Maria Callas throughout her 36-year career, presented at the Untitled Art Fair, GROWTH was taken at the Metropolitan Opera in New York where Callas began her career.

In this new body of work, Wagner explores curtains’ integral role in shaping the immersive nature of the operatic spectacle. The role of curtains in opera extends beyond their utilitarian function as stage coverings, as in the operatic context, they serve as dynamic components which punctuate and shape the audience experience. Traditionally employed to conceal and reveal scenes, curtains act as a visual and symbolic threshold, demarcating transitions between acts and creating dramatic pauses. Beyond their visual impact, curtains also play an acoustic role in opera. Acting as absorbers and diffusers of sound, they contribute to the perception of volume and resonance, adding a layer of sonic nuance to the operatic experience.

Guided by the soprano’s voice and through his experimentation with scale and orientation, Wagner reveals an abstracted and novel reinterpretation of the woven fabric. The artist’s work translates the richness of Callas's voice into visual form, as the velvet folds and undulations serve as a visualisation of her vocal prowess. Wagner’s new video work, Where It Starts, It Ends (2024, 4k, stereo sound, 5min, loop) invites the audience to an intimate exchange with the sensual velvet fabric. 

The traditionally vertical folds of curtains are transformed into horizontal landscapes, creating an ecosystem akin to trees in a forest. These disorienting rotational shifts mirror the vertiginous feeling of stepping onto the stage, thus placing the spectator in the role of the performer, embedded within the forest of curtains. 
Maria Callas is a celebration of music and opera through the nuanced lens of abstract photography.

ABOUT ANTOINE WAGNER

Antoine Wagner is a French-American contemporary artist and film director who works in the fields of sculpture, paintings, drawings, film, performance, photography, sound and installation. His work explores the connectivity between nature, geography, mythology and the sublime as well as themes of resurrection and identity. The institutions that have presented the artist’s work include The Tiroler Festispiele Erl, Austria (2022), Les Archives Nationales, Paris, France ( Nuit Blanche 2021), The National Gallery of Armenia (2019), The New World Center Miami, Florida, USA (2018), The Goethe Institute Tokyo, Japan, (2018), The Deck Museum, Singapore (2018) ,The Voelkerkunde Museum Hamburg, Germany (2014-15), the Collection Lambert en Avignon, France (2014), The Theater of St Gallen Switzerland (2013) and The Palazzo Vendramin Venice, Italy (2013).

Wagner received a bachelor of Arts (2005) in Theater from Northwestern University and a joint Bachelor of Science in Political science (2005) from Northwestern University and Sciences Po Paris. After a continuing studies program at NYU Tisch (2007) Wagner assisted palme d’or winner Michael Haneke. The artist has completed two residency programs: Bob Wilson at the Watermill Foundation in NY (2005) and the summer program at the Villa Medici Rome, Italy (2014). Wagner is the prize winner of the Prix Lyrique Pierre Berge (2013) for his publication with the Verlag for Moderne Kunst Wagner in der Schweiz. 

Wagner’s most recent work, the Impossible Forest, is a collaborative platform raising awareness for land preservation through Art. 



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