At a time when the representation of the female body has invaded every social sphere – from advertising to art, from the intimate to the political – we’ve decided, for the duration of an exhibition, to turn our attention to the male body.

The artists exhibited at Cabinet Lillo-Renner focus on the trace, the gesture, the imprint that these bodies leave on the surface of their paper, a trace that sometimes verges on abstraction. From the contortion of these bodies, and the almost painful movements that each captures, emerges a sensuality that is akin to primitive wonder. Looking at Yannick Cosso ‘s charcoal drawings and Joël Alain Dervaux‘s photographs, one sometimes senses a distant impregnation of the academic nudes and artistic postures of yesteryear. But here, the whole is held in a fragile balance, as if tending towards a fall – waiting for our gaze to restore to the grains of skin, the flesh, the furrows and hollows, an impudent aplomb. These black-and-white bodies serve as a showcase for the collection of men’s jewelry created especially for this exhibition by artist and jeweler Martin Spreng. Wonderful long necklaces in gold and lapis lazuli, rings adorned with precious stones or chains with simple titanium links, all these pieces sublimate the male body, like a return to the time before the Industrial Revolution, when men allowed themselves the chic of jewelry.

Drawing her inspiration from baroque cabinets of curiosities and the surrealist poetry of Éluard, from religious culture as much as from plastic flowers, Lillo (aka La P’tite Lillo) creates objects on the edge, suspended between delicacy and kitsch, adorned with precious stones and gilded branches, concrete and embroidery thread.

From her highly literary background – with a doctorate in semiology and an agrégation de lettres modernes in her pocket – Lillo retains a particular attachment to the suavity of words and the significance of each stigma, which she embroiders here and there on Canson, Japanese paper or old photos.

A whole universe is stirring in her mind. She likes to share it through different media, working in turn with thread, fabric, Indian ink, photography or natural elements gleaned from her walks.

The world of jewelry has always been in a constant state of evolution, with the use of different metals and the evolution of processes characterizing different eras.

Today, when gold seemed to monopolize the world of fine jewelry, titanium is overturning tradition and gradually taking its place in the big leagues.
Its legendary lightness and vast colorimetry make it possible to design modern, elegant jewelry. Here, Elisabeth Lillo-Renner presents two creative lines, crafted by two artists who have mastered the art perfectly, yet are in no way alike!

Martin Spreng, a former cabinetmaker and jewellery designer with a penchant for sculpture, is strongly inspired by nature, and finds in titanium the dry yet moist sensations and textures that wildlife gives us.

Margherita Burgener, also influenced by floral motifs, makes us feel the softness in her movements and colors, for a more classic and traditional jewelry.