The Château of Dampierre is very happy and proud to announce the upcoming show of works by London based artists Sanges and Arepo taking place in its exhibition gallery the next fall (September, 28 – November, 11). Echoing the soul of the place and the esoterica of its Renaissance Gallery, the poetry and dreamlike wolrd of Sanges and Arepo’s photographs will extend the mystery of Alchemy that is the very magic of the place since Fulcanelli’s writing. Evoking the poems of Edgar Allan Poe, the symbolism of late 19th century gothic revival, alchemical experiments of material alterations and Murnau’s cinema, Sanges and Arepo will add their own mysteries to the magic of Dampierre when fall comes, from the highest tower to the deep of the forest all by water surrounded...

(Exhibition texts by Jean-David Jumeau-Lafond, Art historian – Specialist of Symbolist movement)

The fascinating works of my dear friends Alberto Bona and Marco Sanges couldn't be displayed in a more appropriate setting than the Splendid Chateau de Dampierre celebrated by the Great Alchemical Adept Fulcanelli in his book Les Demeures Philosophales originally published in 1930. Indeed both Artists approach their photographic experiences, and their revelatory quest as alchemical operations with extraordinary results which must be seen rather than described or written about.

Fulcanelli on page 13 of the original edition concludes an examination into the etymology of the word alchemy with a fundamental sentence which also aptly applies too their art of photography:

Mais nous savons d'autre part, que le nom et la chose sont basés sur la permutation de la forme par la lumière, feu ou esprit; tel est, du moins, le sens véritable qu'indique la langue des Oiseaux.

(But we know moreover, that the name and the very thing are based upon the permutation of form by Light, Fire, or Spirit; such, at any rate, is the veritable meaning indicated by the Language of the Birds.)

(Prince Stanislas Klossowski de Rola)