« Michel Journiac, Le corps transfiguré »

The exhibition “Michel Journiac, The Transfigured Body” was conceived to coincide with the publication of the second monograph published by Galerie Christophe Gaillard about the work of the French body art pioneer: Michel Journiac, Le corps transfiguré (Michel Journiac, The Transfigured Body (to be published in April 2026)).

Adopting an international approach, this new opus highlights the link between Journiac’s work and the sacred, looking especially at his use of blood as a material, even from his earliest paintings (1957–1958) to Messe pour un corps (Mass for a Body, 1969-1975) and to the final works of the Rituel de transmutation, du corps souffrant au corps transfiguré (Ritual of Transmutation, from the Suffering Body to the Transfigured Body, 1993–1995), dedicated to Journiac’s friends and lovers lost to HIV/AIDS. Its title, borrowed from Journiac, signifies the path the artist took to transfigure the reel, to reinvent the unity between the body and the sacred, and to connect beings in a community based on a genuine politics of friendship.