It is a lesson in history, or rather in counter-history, to which we are invited. Raphaël Barontini, a young prodigy of the contemporary scene dubbed by the greatest institutions in the world, metamorphoses the Pantheon with a monumental, textile and pictorial installation, tailor-made for the Mausoleum of the Great Men. It is in this Cenotaph, a jewel of French heritage, that the artist erected this fresco “creolizing our imaginations” to revive the memory of the actors and actresses of the fight for freedom and pay tribute to the mass of anonymous people enslaved to the wire. centuries.
Made up of five banners as well as twenty large flags on each side of the nave, this guard of honor presents stylized portraits of historical figures in the fight for emancipation and the abolition of slavery. Compared with the historical paintings by Jules-Eugène Lenepveu and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes narrating certain episodes in the history of France, these textile pieces will be activated during musical performances and collective processions by a group from a farm Caribbean carnival. Flags, banners and tapestries are superimposed here to raise awareness and question the representation of power, its ceremonial and its carnivalesque inversion.