Exhibition: Mon Petit Théâtre de Peau d’Âne by Jean-Michel Othoniel

Born in 1952, François Sagnes taught visual arts, drawing and photography. Since 1977, he has been pursuing a personal photographic project based on two parallel themes.
The first series, entitled Seuils (Thresholds), focuses on raw mineral matter, gravity and light in the white marble quarries of Carrara, the grey stone quarries of Belgium and the limestone quarries of Burgundy.
The second series ventures into places where stone and sculpture form the landscape, in Egypt, on Easter Island, in Petra, in the Bomarzo garden in Italy, and elsewhere. The photographer strives to draw the viewer's gaze to the sculpture in order to restore these spaces' uniqueness.
François Sagnes' works are featured in many major French and European public collections.
As a guest of the Hèbre Museum in Rochefort, this travelling photographer presents a selection of more than a hundred of his images taken around the world.

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From 23 June to 20 September 2026, the Musée Hèbre will be exhibiting an exceptional collection of the artist’s watercolours and works, dresses from Jacques Demy’s film—on loan from the Cinémathèque—and items from Jacques Demy’s archives, with the support of Rosalie Varda.

From drawing to sculpture, from installation to photography and from writing to performance, Jean-Michel Othoniel has, since the late 1980s, created a multifaceted universe. Having initially explored materials with reversible qualities such as sulphur or wax, he has been using glass since 1993. His works now take on an architectural dimension and readily find their place in gardens, public spaces or historic sites through public and private commissions around the world.

In 2004, he visited the Maison de Pierre Loti, in particular one of its secret rooms: the Petit musée. The young Julien Viaud, who would later become Pierre Loti, hid his childhood treasures here. Jean-Michel Othoniel discovered a small theatre there, whose sets and characters had been entirely imagined and drawn by Julien. Tiny paper figurines, bits of string, cherry stones or beads make up the troupe of actors in this theatre. Pierre Loti originally wanted to re-enact scenes from Perrault’s fairy tale ‘Peau d’âne’. The box containing the figurines bears the inscription ‘perhaps one day someone will stage my little theatre again’.

Moved by this childlike and magical world, Jean-Michel Othoniel proposed to revive the little theatre of *Peau d’âne* in Rochefort.

The town of Rochefort is also the home of Jacques Demy, who filmed his ‘Les Demoiselles de Rochefort’ there in 1966; in 1970, he directed ‘Peau d’âne’, the first film Jean-Michel Othoniel saw at the cinema as a child, and one that left a deep impression on him. Jacques Demy, too, had his own ‘Petit Théâtre’…

Pierre Loti, Jacques Demy, Jean-Michel Othoniel. Three artists inspired by the tale of ‘Peau d’âne’, three artists whose worlds, like this tale, blend wonders and monsters.

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