For more than a decade, street artist Jordane Saget has developed a unique visual style. His contemporary works are composed of a trio of enigmatic curved lines. Encounter.
The Heurgon Saint Honoré space launched, with the exhibition dedicated to Jordane Saget, the second opening of its cultural calendar. At the heart of the Parisian watch and jewelry flagship of Arnaud and Benjamin Cymerman, the street artist took over the windows, the ground floor and the first floor, during a live happening in June. His works are to be discovered until next October.
Based in Paris, he has developed a unique visual style based on a trio of enigmatic lines. Since 2015, he has been traveling the streets to draw his curves with chalk, brush and finger, without ever signing his works, i.e. already nearly 2,000 ephemeral or permanent creations. His work has been the subject of exhibitions and collaborations with, among others, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Agnès b., Le Printemps, La Samaritaine…
Meeting and discovery
Franceinfo culture: when were these lines born? What was the trigger ?
Jordane Saget: it’s hard to remember the genesis. It started on paper. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been looking for a sort of magic formula to represent reality, perhaps to better understand what’s around me. At school, I really liked mathematics, geometry: I made squares, I added a triangle, I tried to create rules… After the BAC, I stopped.
Later at the age of 30, I go through a difficult period while working in the restaurant industry as a sommelier. I resume this quest for the formula, except that in the meantime I have done seven years of Tai-Chi-Chuan. So, I change the paradigm, I abandon the straight line and I make a first curve, a second, a third. It’s obvious, I found my magic formula! [sourire]. It was terribly ugly but I just had to practice. I started on paper but the artistic approach was born on the street. 99% of my orders came from the street so I still continue today!
Why this repetition of three curved lines that give movement to your works?
When I discover my golden rule, in 2012-13, I look for variations on paper. The first curve is the number 1, it’s unity: I didn’t want to tackle that, it was too much. With the 2nd one, I saw right away that it was frozen and that it didn’t work visually. The 3rd was the imbalance that creates balance, that’s life. It was graphically obvious.
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Do you remember the first time you drew them on the street?
It was at Trinity Church where there are steps. At first, you’re not comfortable so I chose chalk, simply because I didn’t want to get in the way and so that it would fade away if it was ugly. That day, I understood that drawing a line changes space. It’s extraordinary ! There, I began to draw in a new way of dressing Paris. When I look at the photos of my first lines, I wonder why it resonates so well with Paris: but it’s obvious, Paris, Art Nouveau, the curves, the lines, the arabesques, it matches!
How did you go from chalk to finger ?
After the paper, there was the chalk on the floor and the wall, then the white of Meudon on the windows [produit utilisé hier pour nettoyer les surfaces vitrées] and the signpost yellow series with paint around the holes strewn across the floor.
It was in 2020, going back to a street where I had made a work two years earlier, I see that taggers had “toy” [effacé un tag ou écrire par-dessus] my fresco with their finger because they should not have their marker to do it. It gave me the idea to draw just with the finger. I thought of the windows that we opacify and I tried with a roller by putting a thin film. That’s what makes the difference: it’s diaphanous, it lets the light through with plays of shadow.
How do you choose the places where to affix your works?
It’s the simplest thing. Little by little, it becomes instinctive, I see them [mes lignes], by the time I’m going to draw them and I know it’s going to work. The simplest technique is to have the material on you. There are times when we say to ourselves: now is the time to do it!
Have you drawn on billboards, empty of advertising, in the Concorde metro?
It is by far one of my fondest memories. In 2015-16, in a large corridor of this station under construction, I see this row of polished concrete panels, I touch them, I test a chalk and it’s super pleasant to work with. I hadn’t drawn a lot in the metro so I was scared but I see that there is no camera! It lasted a week: people who saw me in the morning at 8 o’clock said to me – when they came home from work in the evening – are you still there? I loved it, it’s as if I had made an incredible exhibition. One day I came at 2 am to draw on the floor. When the workers who worked there, knew that it was me who had covered the spaces dedicated to the posters, they said to me it is magnificent and let me enter.
VAre you also diverting bus shelter ads?
This is the second period after the chalk. I had a revelation one day: I said to myself there is a surface that we have forgotten in the city, the window. This is how the Blanc de Meudon arrived. I ended up with a bunch of publicity where I was going to echo my lines. Most of the time, these are luxury advertisements: these are the ones that I find the most beautiful with my elegant and poetic lines.
You made a live performance for Heurgon. How did this meeting go?
I’m quite in demand for performances, but at Heurgon what was interesting was dressing the jewelry. Result, it’s very beautiful, it works very well in particular the metal bracelet which encloses the beam. The two Cymerman brothers are exceptional, they gave me carte blanche.
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It took me a month to get the idea: it takes time to mature, I don’t really like the approximation but once the idea arrives, it’s obvious. At the beginning, in the windows, I wanted to surround the watches, to make a sort of frame like a Marie-Louise, but it was absolutely necessary to veil them and that resonated!
If, as with Heurgon, your work may be permanent, in the public space, is it fragile and ephemeral?
Yes, I said to myself the chalk is erased. I did so many in Paris that I never came back to the same place: passing by one of them, two years later, I realized that it was still there! On the walls, the chalk is hard in some places. I wanted to erase it because it was less beautiful than before. Then I had a tilt, she is not less beautiful but much more beautiful: she has aged, tarnished, lived. The oldest is on a wall in rue du Pélican: it was five years ago when I met Jean-Charles de Castelbajc.
Fragility is not temporary. The oldest in Blanc de Meudon is with me: she is five years old. It is fragile because it fades but in 100 years it may still be there!
Besides the street, do you exhibit your works in other media?
Yes, there is a canvas here at Heurgon. But I only make them to measure. I made stained glass windows, including a rose window, in the desecrated church of Lardières in the town of Méru (Oise). Soon, I have a project in the sacred church of Joigny (Yonne) with Father Matthieu. For me it is very strong.
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I also do marble work with my brother Meilleur Ouvrier de France and stonecutter: I love working with craftsmen and telling myself that in 300 years it will still exist.
On the route of the Loire by bike, in front of the Château de Villandry, I will draw for 50 meters and it will be permanent. I also made clothes (a dress, T-shirts) with Agnès.b, and I sell little things on my site.
You never sign them?
The fact of not signing was one of the most beautiful ideas that I had. I didn’t want to add more, for me, the lines are already signatures. I didn’t want people to say to themselves: there is someone trying to say something, but what could that mean? But I always sign on the back of my paintings because signing on the front will unbalance the work… and signing behind the street will be complicated! [rire]. The idea is to highlight the lines rather than me!