SOUL PORTRAITS
A REVOLUTIONARY SERIES BY STÉPHANE ZAGDANSKI
SOUL PORTRAITS
Modernism is pleased to present Soul Portraits, the latest conceptual series by French artist Stéphane Zagdanski [b. 1963, Paris].
Dedicated to discerning collectors with a passion for art, this series offers a transcendent and intimate artistic experience. Zagdanski reinvents the portrait, transforming the lives of his subjects into immersive calligraphic paintings.
Each Soul Portrait is a large-scale painting composed of both a textual and visual chronicle of its subject — a handwritten transcription of their existence, meticulously interwoven into a singular work of art. Each collector commissioning a Soul Portrait entrusts Zagdanski with their life story, which is then immortalized as a unique artwork, a perpetual legacy bearing witness to their identity.
Portrait of the Soul of Joseph Zagdanski (the artist’s father), 2021, 43.3 x 55.1 inches
RENDERING THE SOUL IN WORDS AND PAINT
1. THE SITTING SESSIONS
A Soul Portrait begins with a series of three sitting sessions, conducted either in person or remotely. Each session consists of an intimate conversation, offering the subject a rare opportunity to freely recount their story, share their passions, memories, reflections, emotions, and everything they believe best defines their personality. Zagdanski guides the dialogue, recording this profoundly personal testimony.
2. TRANSCRIPTION & PAINTING
Following these sitting sessions, Zagdanski meticulously transcribes the entire oral narrative. This text, unaltered in any way, is then transformed into a work of art, with each phrase hand-calligraphed onto the canvas. Layer by layer, the text becomes increasingly illegible, giving rise to a visually complex structure—an abstract yet profoundly personal representation of the subject’s essence. The only visual element the subject influences is the dominant color of their Soul Portrait.
The result is a synthesis of abstract calligraphy and autobiography, echoing the artistic lineage of Simon Hantaï, Cy Twombly, Mark Tobey and Christian Dotremont.
Complementing the painting, each subject receives a bound manuscript containing the full transcription of their story, along with an audio archive of the recorded sessions. These invaluable materials remain the exclusive property of the collector and their family and are never intended for public display, reinforcing the deeply intimate nature of the Soul Portrait.
Simon Hantaï, Écriture rose (detail), 1959, Centre Pompidou Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1970, MOMA
«L’ÉSOTÉRISME
DE L’ÉCRITURE SUPPOSE LA PERMANENCE RECROQUEVILLÉE D’UN SECRET
AU CENTRE DE LABYRINTHES VISIBLES.»
“THE ESOTERICISM OF WRITING SUPPOSES THE CURLED-UP PERMANENCE OF A SECRET AT THE CENTER OF VISIBLE LABYRINTHS.”
–MICHEL FOUCAULT
The Soul Portrait constitutes an exclusive experience on three levels: existential, spiritual and aesthetic.
The sittings sessions are an opportunity for the subject to resurrect their most tender memories, to dive back into their most intense emotions, to put them into words at their own pace, without being interrupted or disturbed.
The completed calligraphy allows the subject to have before their eyes the encrypted fresco of their own life, a lacework of sentences, a mashrabiya of words, a portrait of their soul reflecting all the memories, emotions, sensations, thoughts, reflections and narrations which make existence a work of art.
Stéphane Zagdanski’s Paris studio
DIMENSIONS & MOUNTING
Each Soul Portrait is created using a mixed media technique on 300g Arches paper, measuring 43.3 x 55.1 inches (110 x 140 cm). The final work is mounted on a rigid support, ensuring its durability while preserving the delicate interweaving of calligraphic layers. The textual elements dissolve into an immersive abstract composition, offering each viewer a uniquely personal perception, much like the depth of human memory and identity.
Portrait of the Soul of Joseph Zagdanski (detail), 2021
A NEW ERA OF PORTRAITURE
With his Soul Portraits, Zagdanski pushes the boundaries between visual and literary art, offering a groundbreaking approach to capturing human essence. His technique evokes the conceptual rigor of Christian Boltanski or On Kawara while embracing the emotional depth of personal narrative.
The Soul Portrait is, for its subject, an existential, spiritual, and aesthetic experience. The process invites them to revisit and express the most defining moments and elements of their life in a contemplative, uninterrupted setting. The final work becomes a visual symphony of their words, a cryptographic mosaic of their identity.
On Kawara, Guggenheim Museum, New York
Christian Boltanski, Les enfants de Dijon, 1985
Collectors wishing to commission a Soul Portrait will have the exclusive opportunity to join a waiting list, securing their place in this extraordinary artistic journey.
Portrait of the Soul of Joseph Zagdanski (detail), 2021
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Stéphane Zagdanski is a contemporary artist and writer, born in Paris in 1963. For the past 25 years, he has pursued in his essays and his novels a reflection about the dialectic of Word and Image in Western Civilization. Zagdanski’s literary oeuvre of about twenty books, published by Gallimard, Fayard, Le Seuil, among others, laid the foundation for his artwork, where words remained both the medium and the subject.
In 2013, Zagdanski developed a new dimension to his literary art with an ambitious project named RARE, an autobiographic novel made of 100 unique pieces of art. In a new visual and aesthetical form, Zagdanski explored the same purpose as he had explored in a literary and theoretical form with his books: engaging a reflection about the hybrid essence of handwriting, material and spiritual, and making visible what he called “the invisibility of writing.”
Since RARE, Zagdanski’s visual work attempts to abolish even more the distinction between the spiritual and the material aspect of his handwriting, through what he calls Words Mandala, referring to the ephemeral Tibetan Buddist drawings made with multicolor sand, which are erased and dissolved as soon as they are completed.
Jouissancedutemps(EnjoymentofTime), his 2016-17 series exhibted at Modernism, ventured one step further in displaying the paradoxical dialogue between word/image and literature/ art through the disappearance of the meaning of text into its own graphic representation. Although the words cannot be understood any longer, they are all there, a whole short story taking place on each painting and drawing, expressing the pure materiality of the text. The Soul Portraits serve as an extenstion of Zagdanski’s multidisciplinary body of work.
Stéphane Zagdanski with Portrait of the Soul of Joseph Zagdanski
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About Modernism
Since its founding in 1979, Modernism has been at the forefront of contemporary and conceptual art, showcasing visionary artists who redefine the possibilities of artistic expression. With an unwavering commitment to innovation, Modernism continues to be a leading force on the international art scene.
Portrait of the Soul of Joseph Zagdanski (detail), 2021
