Che Guevara (after the photo by Alberto Korda, 1929-2001), approximatively 70 x 90 cm, made (in over 300 hours) using the old embroidery ajourage technique called “Jours d’Angles”, by Maïté Chevreau of the Association pour la Sauvegarde et le Rayonnement des Jours d’Angles, (an Association for the maintenance and promotion of the Jours d’Angles technique), at Angles sur l’Anglin.

Produced within the program Métissages / médium textile initiated by the French Délégation aux Arts Plastiques (CNAP), curator Yves Sabourin.
CNAP collection, Fonds National d’Art Contemporain.

As Yves Sabourin put it, in playing with “ the radicality of the textile ajourage technique, Jakob Gautel asked Maité Chevreau to sacralize and desacralize “Che”, the present time icon of the romantic liberator’s myth. Sacralization, since Che plays for the same team as Jesus and Buddha. But also desacralization, the ajourage technique consisting of destructuring the material (a void is created by taking away warp and weft threads). Furthermore, this effigy reminds one of a shroud, and is put up in front of a window, like an old lady’s lace curtain.
The embroider’s technique is outstanding. She proposed technical inventions such as the “demi-pavé” point, a real technical evolution.”

→  Association pour la sauvegarde et le rayonnement des Jours d’Angles
→  CNAP collection, Fonds National d’Art Contemporain