Charcoal and Siberian black on 300g Waterford Sanders paper

4 quadrilateral formats for 2 pieces of 75.5 x 213 and 2 of 75.5 x 153 cm each

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This series involves an approach to the pathos and gestures typical of the human figure in moments of high emotional tension. The characters portrayed in their paroxysm are stockbrokers captured during different episodes of crisis. The gestural choreography and the expressions of hands and faces are intensified when the characters float on a dense black background that isolates them from any context, so we can only speculate about the reasons for their exaggerated dramatizations from the indications of their clothing.

The representational regime of the Renaissance and Baroque periods is embodied in the figures of saints and martyrs. In this case, it is updated by replacing the characters from religious stories with brokers who project their faith in mysteries and intangible logics: the highly financialized and algorithmic economy of our time. These figures, in their isolation and despite sharing the space of representation, the framing of the format and the seriation of the whole, make visible the paradox of power: their potential exercise does not exempt them from solitude; it also highlights the absurdity of the current economic system, designed to self-generate and adapt automatically, without taking into account its predatory logic and destructive capacity for possible future conditions.

The title of the serie literally quotes some words attributed to Madame Pompadour and addressed to Louis XV, his lover, after the Battle of Rossbach, inviting him not to think about the consequences and the drama of this defeat. This was a widespread saying at that time, which promoted the exaggerated spending and the surrender of aristocratic society to all kinds of unbridled pleasures at the end of the Ancien Régime, without thinking about the future and turning their backs on the revolutionary echoes of a change in social paradigm, which were already resounding.