Paris · 16/10/2026
Jean-Claude Silbermann: Du Domaine des Mères
Through drawing, cutting out and painting, Jean-Claude Silbermann sets out to detect the presence of the Mothers – in our lives as much as in our thoughts. These are the Mothers of whom Mephistopheles speaks to Faust in Goethe’s play: “Reluctantly I reveal to you one of the greatest mysteries. There are powerful goddesses who sit enthroned in solitude. Around them there is no place, still less any time. One is moved merely to speak of them. They are the Mothers.” And so they have appeared, one after another, in Silbermann’s cut-out paintings: Dame Perle, Mother of enchantments and of restrained pleasure; Dame Lucy du Hadar, Mother of times to come; and some fifteen other Ladies besides – among them Dame d’or, Mother of revelations and fearsome powers; Dame sentinelle, Mother of knots and unravellings; and Dame passante, Mother of fame and oblivion. Painted on canvas mounted on wooden panels cut to the contours of their figures, these Ladies populate Galerie Sator for the duration of the exhibition, alongside the earlier Le Oui des femmes (1988), which already announced this lineage of powerful, enigmatic female figures.
