Solo show
Opening
Thursday 07 May 2026
La Galerie La Forest Divonne is pleased to present a major solo exhibition by Christian Renonciat, the first in its new space at 130 Avenue Louise.
This exhibition will offer the artist an opportunity to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his first exhibition (Antibes, 1976), through some thirty recent sculptures. They reflect the delight in the world that Renonciat savors through his work—and invites the public to share: the pleasure of simple, familiar, everyday things, rendered with extraordinary sophistication.
Renonciat is a virtuoso of wood. He makes it express whatever he desires, taking it wherever he pleases: blanket, tarpaulin, cardboard, paper, envelope… Everything seems possible and effortless, because when one stands before his works, their technical complexity disappears, leaving us fully immersed in their poetic presence. Before dedicating himself to his art, Renonciat studied philosophy at the Sorbonne. He is an Epicurean in the philosophical sense: one who seeks happiness in the simple pleasures of life. Here, this takes form in the softness of wool, the sheen of varnish, the fold of cardboard, like a landscape (Carton Paysage, trait bleu, 2024, linden wood, 80 x 118 x 6 cm – see p. 2). Renonciat’s sculptures are poems—sometimes almost audible, as one could swear to hear the sound of crumpling paper when looking at Grand Froissé (2023, linden wood, 82 x 135 x 6 cm – see p. 2).
Recently, Renonciat has expanded his universe of material-subjects with nearly abstract sculptures, where what matters is the sheer pleasure of curves and surfaces. This is the “Sables” series—like dunes seen from above, over which the hand longs to glide—or those sculptures with their marvelous blue lacquer, evoking the surface of the sea, with its transparencies and areas of shadow. At the gallery, they will be shown alongside several works in deep black lacquer that reflect all the surrounding light.
In conversation in his studio, the artist quotes a few words from a poem by Aragon: “the caress of being.” A mysterious pleasure in living, in savoring the world, in breathing, in touching. Christian Renonciat allows us to see “the skin of things” and to feel how they live.
Jean de Malherbe
