The Church: ‘April’s Fool: April Gornik Discusses ‘Figures du Fou’, Sunday, April 27 / 3 PM

APRIL’S FOOL:
April Gornik Discusses
Figures du Fou

————

SUNDAY, APRIL 27, 2025
3 PM

————

TICKETS:

General Ticket: $10

Member Ticket: $5

————————————————————

Join artist April Gornik for a richly illustrated virtual walk-through of the Figures du Fou (Figures of the Fool) exhibition that opened on October 16, 2024 at the Louvre Museum and closed on February 5, 2025. Figures of the Fool was brilliantly curated by Elisabeth Antoine-König and Pierre-Yves Le Pogam. April will share slides, talk about the curators’ intent, and introduce her own insights and ideas. Along the way, April will invite thoughts and comments from the audience and, at the end, there will be a more formal question-and-answer period.

————————————-

Figures of the Fool: From the Middle Ages to the Romantics (click on the link for the exhibition’s website) offered a deep dive into the meaning of “the fool” in a multitude of contexts: books, illustrations of the Bible, sainthood, brothels, at court, on the battlefield, in positions of power, and in positions of poverty. Fools had an extraordinary popularity from the 13th through the 16th centuries, with new notions of the fool reignited in the public imagination during the age of Romanticism as well as at the beginning of psychology. Fools included hermits, simpletons, saints, sinners mocking courtly love, party animals, buffoons both royal and common, mad kings, seekers and seers, licentious seducers, jugglers, conjurers, and, not least of all, artists.

————————————-

The fool’s legacy has endured even into present-day art, politics, and theater. Certain streets in Paris are still referred to as Rues de la Folie, meaning “Streets of Madness,” indicating that they were or had been red-light districts. Playing cards still have jokers. And Van Gogh and his phenomenal popularity can be seen as one of our great Fools for Art. As truth-tellers to kings, fools still bear witness to the folly of human behavior.

————————————-

The Church was established in 2019 by artists Eric Fischl and April Gornik. Housed in a deconsecrated 19th-century church, its doors were opened in April 2021. Our mission is to foster creativity and to honor the living history of Sag Harbor as a maker village. The East End represents an exceptional artistic legacy, spanning the practices of indigenous art of several centuries ago, Abstract Expressionists of the mid-20th century, and the many celebrated writers, makers, musicians, and visual artists of the recent past and current moment. Core programming includes visual art exhibitions, concerts and events, educational programming, workshops, lectures, and an artist’s residency.