Sarkis's Dialogues with Grünewald and Memory in Alsace

Sarkis presented a multi-site exhibition across Colmar and Sélestat from November 9, 2005 to February 5, 2006, at the Musée d'Unterlinden, Chapelle Saint-Quirin, and Frac Alsace. The exhibition marks a culmination of the artist's long engagement with memory, particularly his dialogue with Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece, which he had revisited since 1989. Sarkis's works include aquarelles from 1992 depicting hands from the altarpiece, now displayed near the retable in the museum's chapel. A central installation features six videos projected onto fragments of Christ's body from the altarpiece, created with Louvre laboratories, showing the artist pouring milk and touching the wounds. In a deconsecrated chapel in Sélestat, he installed a baroque intervention with a grilled iron piano, ribbons, rag dolls, and colored lights, accompanied by Bach's cello suites. The exhibition also includes 'Ikones' in Alsatian frames, fingerprint murals by over 600 participants at Frac, and workshops for children. The show asserts art's therapeutic function, inspired by the altarpiece's historical use for healing the sick.