Keeping an eye on the art galleries
L'Oeil magazine's journalists give a brief overview of the exhibitions currently on view in Parisian art galleries, starting with François Rouan's exhibition at the Galerie Templon, voted "a sure thing" in this April issue. Born on 8 June 1943 in Montpellier, the artist, who currently lives and works in the Oise region of France, has devoted himself to painting, photography and video since he studied at the Montpellier and Paris schools of fine arts. Although he never joined the Supports-Surfaces group, in 1969 he took part in the first exhibition of the ephemeral movement at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, bringing together artists who favoured a practice of painting that emphasised its elementary components.
Inspired by Matisse's paper cut-outs, François Rouan first experimented with all sorts of techniques before finding his own method for deconstructing painting. In fact, he developed "a weaving process that consists of weaving together two previously painted canvases to make a new support", explains Anne-Charlotte Michaut. The journalist from L'Oeil also recalled that this technique would become his trademark and that it was thanks to this weaving that he won the Prix de Rome in 1971. This of course allowed him to reside at the famous Villa Medici, then directed by Balthus. An encounter that was bound to be of great importance...
As early as the 1970s, Jacques Lacan became interested in the work of François Rouan, and his work was the subject of a retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in 1983. At that time, he already began to diversify his work by developing his photographic practice. And at the beginning of the 2000s he made films, without however ever abandoning the practice of painting. The proof is in the pudding, from 23 March to 13 May at the Templon Gallery, where his works of art for sale have returned to the walls of the Parisian art gallery after a fifteen-year absence. On view are recent and unpublished works created between 2009 and 2019. These are "complex and erudite" paintings, including many oil paintings on woven canvas, which "are part of the continuity of thirty years of experimentation and commitment", says the monographic catalogue accompanying the exhibition.
According to Anne-Claude Coric, general manager of the Templon Gallery, "at his last exhibition of paintings at the gallery, fifteen years ago, his large canvases were already selling for between 65,000 and 100,000 euros, which was significant at the time. Today, the great rarity of his artworks for sale, combined with the constant support of the institutions that have actively collected him since his beginnings, explains why his price level has been maintained, despite his relative discretion at auction. The recent paintings, currently on show at Galerie Templon, are priced between €120,000 and €160,000.
You will have to count between 5,000 and 35,000 euros to acquire one of the paintings or watercolours on paper that Simon Martin is showing at the Galerie Jousse entreprise until 3 May. This is the second exhibition in this gallery of the artist who "places himself at the limit of abstraction and gives his representations a vaporous effect, obtained in particular by a subtle play on the erasure of colours". In his new works of art for sale, Simon Martin explores memory and memories, what remains of them or not.
The Miranda art gallery is offering exceptional photographic works until 6 May, at prices ranging from 4,200 to 19,000 euros: those of the American photographer Dave Heath (1931-2016). This is a selection of vintage prints from the series published in 1965 in "A Dialogue With Solitude". A landmark work that has just been reissued by Le Bal and Steidl, in which the photographer captures the malaise and fractures of American society in tightly focused portraits shot in finely contrasted black and white.
The exhibition "Edi Dubien. Les cœurs envolés" can be seen until 29 April at the Alain Gutharc art gallery. To acquire one of the works of art for sale by this self-taught artist, born in 1963, who has carved out a place for himself on the contemporary art market with a sensitive body of work imbued with gravity and melancholy, you will have to reckon with prices ranging from €1,600 to €6,000 for a work on paper, and €10,000 to €30,000 for a painting on canvas.
The contemporary artworks for sale in the exhibition "La vie là!" will unfortunately leave Florence Wagner's gallery on 15 April. Curated by Marc Partouche, six young artists who have been awarded a residency at the Villa Belleville question current social issues, such as ecology or new technologies, through various forms and techniques. Juan Gugger, for example, sculpts waste and Pablo Hnatow questions our dual physical and digital existence in a multi-media installation.
In his art gallery on rue Chapon, Aboriginal art specialist Stéphane Jacob likes nothing more than to mix generations and techniques to better show the permanence, and therefore the renewal, of Australian art. Until June 16, historical paintings by Tjumpo Tjapanangka (1930-2006) rub shoulders with mimih spirit sculptures by Samson Bonson (born in 1968) and paintings by Konstantina, "artist, mother and activist" exhibited for the first time at the Jacob Gallery, which will devote a solo exhibition to her in October 2023. Expect to pay around 6,000 euros for a work of art for sale by Konstantina, whose contemporary approach to the seabed and plants of her region is reminiscent of the minimalism of Agnès Martin.
Colette Barbier, former director of the Pernod Ricard Foundation, was invited by Claudine Papillon to create an exhibition in her art gallery on rue Chapon. Thus "Circulus" brings together until 6 May fourteen artists evoking the figure of the acrobat, including three who are part of the gallery: Erik Dietman, JC Ruggirello and Elsa Sahal. The works of art for sale by Thomas Schütte, Michele Ciacciofera and Nina Childress are proving to be very nice surprises according to L'Oeil journalist Anne-Cécile Sanchez. She also spotted Antwan Horfee at the Ceysson & Bénétière gallery, Nicolas Delprat at the Maubert gallery and Christian Lhopital at the 8 + 4 art gallery.
Fabien Simode pays tribute to his late colleague Colin Cyvoct, who passed away in 2019, and who had a real crush in 2017 on the work of Marine Joatton, who is exhibiting her "presences" that are always as "assertive as they are improbable" until 27 April at the Galerie Placido.