Zeugma 01 – Romain Bernini

Zeugma is a figure of speech that consists of linking two different elements, often words or ideas, with a single term that applies to each of them in a different way. This unexpected association creates a poetic tension, a play on meaning that blurs the boundaries between apparently opposing or distant ideas.

In this project called Zeugma, the idea is to play with this same logic of assembly and juxtaposition. The guest artist is this link. He establishes new connections between the Royal Abbey and the Fontevraud Museum of Modern Art. The aim is not just to bring the two places face to face, but to bring out new meanings, to explore unexpected relationships, to create a subtle alchemy between the works on display. Through these two proposals, Fontevraud invites the artist to experiment with new modes of representation, to redefine the relationships between spaces, forms and ideas.

How did Romain Bernini imagine linking the works in the museum collection to the architectural ensembles of Fontevraud Abbey? The verticality and power of the site impose a relationship with the sacred that is apparent in many of the objects in the collection, which come from various forms of spirituality. Although the museum is horizontal, and there is no hierarchy between the works, the artist had a similar experience to the one he had in the abbey; he perceived the same intensity and discerned the same message, that of humanity in search of its link with the intangible. For the artist, the temptation is great to show how buildings and works of art illuminate a relationship with the transcendent, which leads to the creation of a painting, a building or a song.

To this end, Romain Bernini uses places as a creative material or iconographic repertoire: images, architecture and works of art are apprehended, interpreted and then moved to enter the painting. In this way, he says, ‘it is through direct reference, mise en abyme or the translation of certain works from the collection that my proposal expresses the possible links between the museum and the heritage site, which are not tightened around a linear narrative but, on the contrary, encourage the emergence of multiple narratives around the universal search for the sacred’.

Born in 1979, Romain Bernini lives and works in Paris. His pictorial work is inspired by reflections on colour, space, ritual, popular culture and non-Western art.
Whether it’s lush, enigmatic landscapes, masked or disguised contemporary shamans, exotic animals or strange, indeterminate zones, Romain Bernini’s work reveals the margins of the world, the possibility of ecstasy or a balancing act between reality and utopia.

Romain Bernini is represented by the Suzanne Tarasiève (Paris) and HdM (London and Beijing) galleries. A resident at the Villa Medici in Rome in 2010-2011, he has taken part in numerous exhibitions in France and abroad, including Eden’s Island: Magicians, Wnderers and Stargazers (K11, Wuhan, China, 2024), Immortelle (MO. CO, Montpellier, 2023), Expended Minds (HdM gallery, 2020), Eldorama, (Lille 3000, 2019), Les Enfants du Paradis (Musée des Beaux-arts de Tourcoing, 2019), Romain Bernini, (solo show, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chambéry, 2018), Blue Bird (Daegu Art Factory, South Korea, 2022), Tristes tropiques (1905 Art Space, Shenyang, China 2021), Creating Worlds (Wooyang Museum of Contemporary Art, South Korea, 2017).

His works are in numerous public collections, including the Centre Pompidou Musée national d’Art moderne, the Centre national des arts plastiques, the MAC VAL, the Frac Ile-de-France and the Frac des Pays de la Loire. A large tapestry has been woven from one of his works at the Cité Internationale de la Tapisserie in Aubusson.