THÉOPHILE STERN
AFIN QUE TOUS SOIENT UN

2016 – 2017

ST. EUSTACHE CHURCH, PARIS

THÉOPHILE STERN

Born in 1990 in the Beaujolais region of France, Théophile Stern took an industrial course in metallic structures from 2006 to 2011. He enrolled the the École des Beaux Arts in Paris in 2013, in Pascale Marthine Tayou’s workshop. In 2015, he presented an installation at the University of Paris-Dauphine and took part in the Paradis culinaire exhibition on the theme of hunting at the Purgatoire gallery, in partnership with the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (Paris). In 2016, his work was shown at the Galleria Continua (Les Moulins) as part of the Tayou workshop’s Explosition exhibition. His highly experimental work features recycled assemblies of industrial objects that he finds in nature. He confronts these objects, used and damaged by time and by Man, and explores their intrinsic irregularity to create new plastic balances.

To celebrate the feast of the Nativity and under the impetus of Françoise Paviot, in charge of contemporary art within the parish, Rubis Mécénat, St. Eustache Church, and the launched in 2016 a call for proposals amongst the École des Beaux Arts students to make a contemporary Nativity Scene. Whilst reinforcing its links with contemporary art, the church also rekindles the tradition during the 80s and 90s of commissioning neighborhood members to conceive nativity scenes. The young artist Théophile Stern (born in 1990), winner of the first edition created a contemporary nativity scene Afin que tous soient UN (“So that we may all be ONE”). It represents a vertical unfinished boat pulled from the water by a dove at the bow and in which oat portraits of men, women and children from today who live in France, some of whom are refugees recently established in Paris.