The best of Parisian art galleries
A little update on the art gallery scene at the beginning of 2023: here is something to inspire ARTactif's subscribers, who are always looking for works of art to buy or sell. This month, the journalists of L'Oeil magazine have concocted a nice little selection of gallery exhibitions, unfortunately exclusively Parisian, contrary to what is announced in their tagline, but which are nonetheless worth a visit when they have not yet given way to new hangings.
Vincent Delaury has chosen to focus on Rob Miles, a visual artist who is also a musician, born in London in 1987 and a graduate of the Royal College of Art, whose first solo exhibition at the Catherine Putman art gallery is on until 11 March, in the 4th arrondissement. Twenty or so of his varied works can be seen there, including paintings, collages, oils on wood cuttings, drawings... and even a lithograph published especially for the occasion. The prices of these works of art for sale range from €500 to €8,000. "His fragmented, puzzle-like compositions combine fragmentation, transparency and multiple perspectives, subtly placing the theatre, etymologically the place where we look, in the abyss," writes the journalist.
The exhibition Aristide Maillol & Catherine Viollet that the journalist also selected ended on 14 January at the Galerie Loeve&Co Marais, but the happy dialogue between sculptures, paintings, drawings and watercolours of the two artists has notably allowed the spotlight to be shone on the artist considered to be the only woman of the Figuration Libre, born in 1955 in Chambéry. Revealed in Bernard Lamarche-Vadel's exhibition, Finir en beauté, in 1981, Catherine Viollet devoted most of her work in the early 1980s to paintings and drawings of female figures inspired by Aristide Maillol (1861-1944). Recently honoured by a superb retrospective at the Musée d'Orsay, the famous sculptor who represented Dina Vierny so much, was also honoured at the art gallery of the same name. The aura of the one illuminating the other, the meeting at Loeve&Co was judicious.
Indeed, it was when she discovered the eighteen statues by Maillol in the Tuileries gardens that Viollet distinguished herself from the group she had naturally joined, so close was her work to that of Rémy Blanchard, namely the Figuration Libre group comprising Boisrond, Combas and Di Rosa, who preferred to focus on subjects from rock music, comics and more generally the street, while she went into the gardens. Catherine Viollet's artworks for sale ranged in price from €1,300 to €24,000, their dancing lines perfectly echoing Maillol's sensual and powerful curves, whose artworks for sale on site ranged from €6,000 to €90,000.
Two other gallery exhibitions chosen by Vincent Delaury unfortunately also ended in January. Christophe Gaillard's exhibition of Stéphane Couturier in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris was the second solo show in this gallery of the photographer and visual artist born in 1957 in Neuilly-sur-Seine. The artist's approach is to take over houses to reveal their pictorial beauty. Thus, a dozen photographs sold for between €9,000 and €19,000, as well as a tapestry worth €60,000, all previously unseen, played on the fusion between a photo of the E-1027 villa, built by Eileen Gray, and an image of a mural painted years later by Le Corbusier. A game that could also, according to the journalist, evoke the drawing in space and the optical vertigo of Georges Rousse.
Victor Koulbak, an artist of Russian origin born in 1946 in Moscow, was exhibiting for the first time at the Galerie Berès. An art gallery located in the 7th arrondissement which allowed this free artist who refused all the diktats of official Soviet art to show seventy drawings and paintings for sale even though he had not exhibited in France for 20 years! For his drawings alone, prices ranged from 3,500 to 15,000 €. With a precision of line that is reminiscent of Renaissance artists, Victor Koulbac demonstrates a formidable technique for his favourite subjects: animals, flowers and portraits.
Vincent Delaury's fifth selection is Jeanne Vicérial, born in 1991 in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, in the Vaucluse, who is opening her first solo exhibition at the Templon art gallery in the 3rd arrondissement. The artist, who oscillates between the textile industry and the sculptural world, unveils her "armors". About fifteen original textile sculptures, made of scars and love, halyards, threads and armours, question the place of the female body in society. Works of art for sale between €2,000 and €40,000 depending on the size. To be discovered until 3 March.
Following the advice of Anne-Cécile Sanchez for L'Oeil, you can also go and get a personal idea of the work of Djamel Tatah at the Poggi gallery, in the 4th arrondissement, until 25 February, whether or not you have been to Montpellier to take advantage of the exhibition that the Fabre museum is devoting to his "Theatre of Silence". The Parisian gallery offers the opportunity to discover more recent paintings by this painter born in 1959 in Saint-Chamond, who renews himself in this series, bringing together figuration and flat colours with a predominance of white.
"The art of Eugène Carrière" was not going to escape Anne-Cécile Sanchez either, an exhibition proposed until March 4 by the Jocelyn Wolff art gallery in Romainville (93), and allowing to come back to the intimate and discreet art of a painter born in 1849, who died in 1906, perfectly recognized during his lifetime but tending to fall little by little in oblivion. The art historian Serge Lemoine demonstrates here, in some fifty paintings, how original is this work of portraits, landscapes and still lifes, defined by its earthy chiaroscuro and its rapid execution.
The journalist also chose to talk to us about "Afghanistan beyond the borders", about sixty works of art for sale by painters, photographers and video artists that were brought together until 14 January at the Dominique Fiat art gallery, and sold for the benefit of the artists who have remained in Afghanistan, following a proposal by the Marseilles-based association HdH, which promotes contemporary creation and cultural exchanges. Five Afghan artists who were evacuated after the Taliban took over were thus gathered here to say goodbye to a country they did not want to leave.
A third journalist from L'Oeil offers his unique selection after returning from his own tour of Parisian galleries: Fabien Simode has chosen Brecht Evens, "our contemporary Brueghel" according to the editor Michael Woolworth. The latter is exhibiting in his studio until 4 March the plates of the comic book artist who is working on the edition of about fifty lithographs and woodcuts intended to be included in the pages of his next book, entitled Le Roi Méduse, to be published in 2024 by Actes Sud.
Illustration: Rob Miles - Opening Lines