In 1997, Johan Creten was selected for a residency at the prestigious French Academy in Rome - Villa Medici. This period marked a decisive turning point in his artistic career. Immersed in a setting steeped in history and inspiration, he developed a unique sculptural language in which ceramics engage with a multitude of philosophical questions and update myths to reveal their contemporary secrets. 

This residency gave rise to an important work in the artist's career. The Garden embodies Johan Creten's Roman reflections, a creation that explores the themes of paradise lost and temptation. Oranges fall and die in the villa while we are still subject to the temptation of the first Men, who will remain responsible? The one who greedily seizes the forbidden fruit or the one whose paraisse ignores it until he perishes? 

The Villa not only embodies this space for creative introspection, it is also a place for fruitful encounters and exchanges. It was here that Johan Creten met Bruno Racine, the future director of the Centre Pompidou and the BNF, the Arte Povera photographer Claudio Abate and Marie-Claude Beaud, the curator with whom he presented his creations at the exhibition ‘Johan Creten, La Misère Dorée’ from November to December 1997 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs de la Ville de Paris. 

In this exhibition, the public discovered for the first time the works created during the residency. It shows a poetic dialogue between the sublime and decadence, the association of raw materials with gold and silver amplifying this duality. Johan Creten not only celebrates beauty, but also confronts it with its own fragility, revealing all its ambiguity.

Creten confirms his interest in sculpture that is charged with meaning, where the materiality and history of ceramics become the vehicle for a profound reflection on the taboos and tensions of contemporary society. 

In October 2020, he returns to the Académie de France for what remains to this day Johan Creten's biggest solo exhibition in Italy. In I PECATTI, he presents an ensemble of more than 50 works, set in dialogue with certain historical pieces from his personal collection (Lucas Van Leyden, Jacques Callot, Hans Baldung...) to produce a reflection on sin and guilt. In this solo show, the artist returns to his Roman subjects and shows how he has pursued all his reflections on humanity, both through his creations as a whole and through the diversity of his questioning.