This book is the first monograph devoted to the artist duo The Bells Angels, consisting of Julien Sirjacq and Simon Bernheim.
Photos, paintings, engravings, but also magazine design and graphic design for major institutions—the monograph presents all of their work, particularly powerful creations that are part of a post-punk musical and artistic culture.
The Bells Angels appeared in the late 2000s: Julien Sirjacq and Simon Bernheim, who had previously worked separately, felt the urge to launch a fanzine and, with it, a platform animated by a galaxy of artists, in a hybrid circuit offering an alternative to the traditional art world, a way of making the notion of the author disappear, and the question of the value of the work of art in favor of a collective. Julien Sirjacq (1974) defined himself at the time as an artist preoccupied with the ideas of Michel Foucault, pedagogy, and archives. Since 2015, he has been workshop manager at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, where he is co-head of the Printing/Publishing department. Simon Bernheim (1975) is an artist and musician, and a founding member of the group 10LEC6. His research has led him to question the hierarchy of texts and images in public spaces.
In 2019, the Bells Angels began painting with four hands, using airbrushes, brushes, and monochrome chrome: the Crowd Processing Paintings. In the spirit of the painting of Andy Warhol, Sigmar Polke, and Julie Mehretu, and in line with their graphic activities, they have integrated the photomechanical screens of silkscreen printing into the canvas, which they use to cover a gestural or figurative painting that has become spectral. These images are haunted by an awareness of the fragility of the world: visions of catastrophe, apocalyptic landscapes, crowds, and migratory flows. Objects from the artists' collection—medals, logos, pins—float on the surface of the canvases. An invitation to an archaeology of images and their flows.
With texts by: Alexia Fabre, Tristan Garcia, Christian Joschke, Jean-Yves Jouannais, Ingrid Luquet-Gad, Anaël Pigeat, and Catherine de Smet.
With the support of the Centre National des Arts Plastiques and the assistance of the Galerie des Filles du Calvaire.
Price: €39
Format: 170 x 240 mm
408 pages
ISBN: 9782840568698
