Marc Alberghina

Born in 1959, Laval, France

Since 1989 Visual artist/Sculptor

1978-1989 Professional backgorund in ceramics

1975-1978 Ecole des Métiers de la Céramique, Cannes, France

With Offrande, Marc Alberghina invites us to witness a very special feast: the remains of practices more closely related to the notion of cannibalism than anything else. The work thus takes a look at the history of our social practices with a view to denouncing them, or at least pointing the finger at them (cannibalism and its modern forms), but also makes reference to that of ceramics and, in particular, the “Vallauris” phenomenon. Here, the cannibalistic, self-confident mercantilism of manufacturers and retailers of “kitsch” ceramics covered in flambéed glaze and “signed” in gold and the organisation of destructive mass tourism have led to the breakdown of a human and artistic adventure well known to art lovers. Marc Alberghina’s studio is in fact in Vallauris.

The scene of carnage of our behaviour, excesses and ambivalences, Offrande is also an account of our ancient fears and anxieties in the face of death, which are too often avoided in a consumer society greedy for facile, hypnotic aesthetics. In a world in which the image of beauty itself (an organised, manipulated product), the cult of youth and seduction invade every aspect of our lives, this strong work, whose components are put together and staged in a totemic style, acts as a reminder of our human condition - a condition that is too deliberately removed from our thoughts and lives, in which the constant consumption of doctored, artificial, watered-down images that play the part of free and easy modern icons closely resembles a form of cannibalism that lays carefully concealed beneath a so-called “civilised” facade.

Yves Peltier