Chantal Raguet's New French Fauvism at Galerie Cortex Athletico

Chantal Raguet's exhibition 'Projet NFF – New French Fauvism' at Galerie Cortex Athletico in Bordeaux (December 15, 2009 – January 23, 2010) revisits the ferocity of Fauvism, not through color but through themes of taming, camouflage, and decorative disobedience. The show features works such as guard-dog patterned canvases, dyed chicken-feather cockades, chandeliers made of chains, faux animal skins from printed clothing, necklaces of carved ox-bone teeth, ties from galvanized washers, uniform jackets with frogging, and cages in various configurations. Raguet cultivates a 'savage joy' that balances brutality and lucidity, exploring domination, submission, accumulation, and transgression. The review by Didier Arnaudet appears in art press n°364 (February 2010).