Who is Cristobal?

Since their meeting in 2017, Maurice Renoma has been sending this artistic alter ego on a journey around the world to denounce the ravages of pollution linked to overconsumption and the erosion of collective consciousness. Through this recurring motif of a fish, the artist creates narratives that are at once poetic, playful, and iconoclastic: viewers are drawn into a vibrant universe to discover a story of resilience.

Cristobal is also a premonition, a small fish born from polymers and nourished by the 15 million tons of plastic dumped into the oceans each year, but he doesn't fear becoming a victim. Plastic has so revolutionized the world that its use has become indispensable. Toxic and expensive to recycle, its residues have contaminated cities, countryside, mountains, and the ocean floor as well as its surface.

Cristobal is the standard-bearer of the mobilization that will reverse the trend: Maurice Renoma has made him an ambassador for ecology. Through this immersive and educational exhibition, this project helps guide the general public in this awareness-raising effort, particularly towards young people who will make up tomorrow's society and will be key players in shaping the future of the planet.

An icon?

While Pop Art is often provocative, even political, and tends to desacralize the work of art by making it accessible to all, Maurice Renoma also created his own Pop icon: Cristobal, this plastic goldfish that uses the power of the image to embody the critique of materialism and consumerism observed in modern societies.

Like Pop Culture, which in the 1960s asserted itself in opposition to traditions and manifested itself in the behavior of an entire generation, Cristobal carries a message that the artist wants to make accessible and universal: the goldfish is everywhere in his work, just as plastic is everywhere in everyday life. Art and life lose all separation.

Colorful, cheerful, lively and "consumable" with free access during the exhibitions offered by the artist, its meaning is more important than the work itself: it becomes an ambassador for ecology to highlight the ravages of plastic pollution linked to overconsumption.

The dialogue between man and animal is often at the center of this artistic exploration. Thus, very large portraits, like family portraits, make up the series Mythologies of the Goldfish: Cristobal appears in the company of strangers who appropriate him, finding him amusing, pretty, quirky, endearing; some have the audacity to stage themselves with him, a true mirror of the absurd.

Continuing with his Goldfish Mythologies, the artist takes his goldfish Cristobal on a journey not around the world but through time, where he enjoys playing with the codes of classical representation.

Freedom of creation and ecological concern remain the artistic centers of interest of Maurice Renoma, who once again affirms his iconoclastic desire to break the codes: the hybridization that accompanies all his work takes here the form of a playful and irresistible anamorphosis.

As in his work as a couturier, images become materials and forms to be molded and blended to create bold, original combinations. In art as in fashion, Maurice Renoma experiments with patchwork, the reuse and reappropriation of images as tangible elements.

In his approach, the codes of representation are no longer fixed and the modes of figuration are destroyed and recomposed at will to push the imagination beyond the beaten paths.

The classics meet and begin a dialogue between eras. What do they talk about when no one is watching? And why is Cristobal the face of these conversations?

The famous goldfish has the power to address contemporary issues and make them universal: it retells the story so that everyone can recognize themselves in it and participate in its writing.

THE PARIS AQUARIUM

A plastic goldfish at the Aquarium of Paris to denounce pollution! From March 2nd to May 3rd, the Aquarium of Paris invites you to discover a unique collaboration centered on the adventures of Cristobal, the plastic goldfish mascot of fashion designer and visual artist Maurice Renoma. In a playful, poetic, and artistic exhibition, a fantastical and whimsical world blends art with nature. This immersive experience invites visitors to reflect on the omnipresence of plastic in all its forms and states. Cristobal becomes the joyful and unconventional ambassador of a contemporary message.

“I think I’d had this idea about plastic in my head for some time. A year before the goldfish story, I flew over Malaysia and realized—it was like a slap in the face—that humankind was destroying nature, ravaging the ecosystem by clear-cutting forests to plant palm trees. Cristobal explains that we are murdering the Earth, but with humor. He talks about pollution, the proliferation of plastic, but also about recycling.” – Maurice Renoma

TROUVILLE

After visiting Saint-Quay-Portrieux and Brittany in 2022, this year 2023 Cristobal the goldfish – the faithful companion of designer, fashion creator and photographer Maurice Renoma – is cruising the Normandy coast and invading the beach of Trouville-sur-Mer!

The whole city comes alive around this amazing and endearing plastic character: it swims through spectacular, comical and poetic scenes, pointing with its fin to the ecological but also societal issues dear to the artist.

Join us on Saturday, April 1st, 2023 for the opening of the open-air exhibition: from the boardwalk to the quayside, passing by the Cures Marines and other iconic locations in this town, Maurice Renoma offers an offbeat stroll following in the footsteps of his goldfish on its wanderings. Cristobal will be in Trouville-sur-Mer until the end of October 2023, with a very special date: the 23rd of this month will mark 60 years of Maurice Renoma's creative and counter-cultural endeavors.

CRISTOBAL'S POP WALK

After Brittany (Saint-Quay-Portrieux), Normandy (Trouville) and the Grand Est (Strasbourg), Cristobal the goldfish is offering a Pop Promenade in Nice at the Galerie Depardieu from March 6 to April 12, 2025.

Protagonist of Maurice Renoma's latest exhibitions and artistic experiments (Mythologies of the Goldfish, Symphonic Scene, Anamorphosis,…), Cristobal is the symbol of the artist's ecological and humanist reflections, presented in the form of fables and mythologies.

Since 2017, Maurice Renoma has been taking this artistic alter ego around the world to denounce the ravages of pollution linked to overconsumption and the degradation of collective consciousness.

Cristobal swims through spectacular and immersive, comical and poetic stagings, highlighting ecological as well as societal issues.

While Pop Art is often provocative, even political, and tends to desacralize the work of art by making it accessible to all, Maurice Renoma also created his own pop icon: Cristobal, this goldfish born from polymers, which uses the power of the image to embody the critique of materialism and consumerism observed in modern societies.

SYMPHONY SCENES

Maurice Renoma invites William Bakaimo and Famakan Magassa for a unique exhibition entitled Scène Symphonique at Appart Renoma, from Wednesday May 19 to Wednesday June 30, 2021.

Works by the Beninese artist Dominique Zinkpè will be presented.
After being a temple of the absurd with Mythologies du Poisson Rouge, L'Appart Renoma, a hybrid space in perpetual mutation, is reinventing itself to become the vantage point for a new generation of emerging artists driven by the same desire to shake things up.

“Perfumes, colors, and sounds respond to one another,” wrote Baudelaire. Like a skillfully rhythmic symphony, this new exhibition showcases the works of three creators, in harmony with one another, to initiate a powerful and impactful pictorial composition.