Ar Seiz Avel: designers in Brittany for today and tomorrow

Ar Seiz Avel: creators in Brittany for today and tomorrow - from July 7 to July 11, 2024

- Exceptional exhibition at the Parlement de Bretagne in Rennes - Sunday, July 7 - 2pm to Thursday, July 11 - 12am

Free admission upon reservation: https://www.billetweb.fr/ar-seiz-avel

- Auction at the Hôtel des Ventes: Thursday, July 11 - 2pm - 32 place des Lices - 35000 Rennes

For Rennes Enchères Bretagne, the exhibition and sale celebrating the centenary of the creation of Seiz Breur was a real adventure. Not only were we able to federate other auction houses around this rather crazy project, organize a tour of Brittany to discover works sometimes unknown to specialists, and bring together a high-level scientific committee to authenticate and comment on them, but we were also able to create a real craze for this movement that is ultimately too little known by our compatriots.

In July 2023, almost 4,500 people gathered for three days at the Parlement de Bretagne in Rennes to discover what had sometimes been ignored or forgotten. Alan Stivell, the President of the Conseil Culturel de Bretagne, Rozenn Milin, Béatrice Macé, the Region's Vice-President in charge of culture, and even the representative of the Scottish Government, Miranda McIntosh, came along with other personalities to celebrate this centenary.

Once the exhibition was over, the doors closed, the works passed on to enthusiasts who became curators of sometimes unique pieces, we imagined Jeanne Malivel or René Yves Creston happy with what we had proposed, but saying to us: 'Thank you for reminding Brittany and art lovers alike of the spirit and material of our creations, which now belong to history, but what now? What can you do for the Brittany of today and tomorrow?

And so the Seiz Avel project was born. From this imagined question, Rennes Enchères Bretagne was inspired to take up the fundamental values of the Seiz Breur and launch a new dynamic around today's creators, consciously or unconsciously animated by these same values.

Very early on, we decided to draw up a charter, the foundation of what would lead to a call for projects. This charter represented the only specifications imposed on designers. It called on creators to join us, provided they shared values such as openness to others and to the world, attachment to Brittany in all its dimensions (territorial, cultural, environmental, economic...), integrity, sincerity, honesty, loyalty and authenticity. This adhesion and mutual recognition would enable them to project themselves, but also, in the long term, to meet up again and federate into a new dynamic which, let's dream, could lead to an artistic movement, the offspring of Seiz Breur.

It was a new adventure! Would the call for projects be heard? Were there any creators in Brittany today who were still driven by values that allowed them to take on original perspectives that sometimes went beyond their usual creations?

It's an understatement to say that we were surprised to receive several dozen applications from all over Brittany and beyond.

A high-level selection committee helped us to identify creations that not only complied with the charter, but also had the artistic and aesthetic merit to be truly ambitious.

But we also wanted to innovate, in the same spirit that had driven the Seiz Breur. So we invited Anne Kerdi, a Breton artificial intelligence who speaks Breton, English, French, Irish and Scottish Gaelic, to bring Seiz Avel into our century. But more than that, we decided to open a virtual, immersive gallery with a Breton developer, a gallery through which visitors could discover, in a different way, the creations of the Seiz Avel.

As time went by, our ideas and the talents we discovered and brought together created interest in Brittany, an interest that was reflected in interviews and articles on radio and television, in newspapers and on social networks.

But to our great surprise, this dynamic has also been recognized beyond our seas, in Scotland and Ireland. Irish artists have joined the momentum and will be coming to the Parliament of Brittany to celebrate, after the centenary of Seiz Breur in 2023, the birth of Seiz Avel in 2024!

Come one, come all to join in this celebration of the creativity, energy and richness of creation inspired by Brittany.

We look forward to seeing you there!

A wir galon.

Carole Jézéquel, auctioneer