Emmanuelle Rapin
The lead dew (for Polke)
2022

Needle perforations on paper, sewn with lead balls and hair, black cotton thread, 63.3 x 48.

There is a humid and heavy air there like a lead dew (Maurice Maeterlinck, Pelleas et Mélisande Act III, scene 3) Crossings of temporalities. The face of Bia de Medici (painted by Bronzino in 1542) is superimposed on the starry sky of Sigmar Polke’s work Sternhimmeltuch (1968) in which the artist has traced his name S.Polke by connecting with lines the points corresponding to the stars. The stars are materialized here by lead balls sewn onto the black paper. I used my hair to connect the lead balls and form my initials E.R. Another thin line of hair connects the lead stars beginning from the inner corner of the eye, on the right. They flow from Bia’s eyes. The tears are the dew of the soul.

€ 8000.-