Seen for you in L'ŒIL

The great return of figurative painting

Painting, and figuration in particular, is once again in the wind. A backlash against immateriality? A return to grace in schools? Or simply a return to square one before heading back in the opposite direction? The fact remains that the demand is there. Supply is responding with all the speed of our digital age. That's the form. In essence, the time has come to find new balances. Balance between women and men at the Surrealism exhibition at the Centre Pompidou. North-South balance at the Venice Biennale. Nothing very original or wickedly subversive in short. Who said that art evolved separately from the societies in which it is located?

The tricks of trompe-l'oeil

Until the appearance of Modern Art, the faithful reproduction of reality, and particularly nature, reigned over painting. It was the age of mimesis. Reality was mimed. The trompe-l'oeil genre was prized by artists because it allowed them to demonstrate their talent in the most spectacular way. And this, since Antiquity when Zeuxis painted, it is said, grapes so realistic that birds with deceived eyes wanted to peck at them. The art of making two dimensions pass for three long before photography. Thanks to the magic of oil whose effects of light and matter work wonders, trompe-l'oeil has been unrivaled in imposing the false as true since the Renaissance. This pictorial illusionism obviously also owes a lot to the invention of perspective without which its optical games would fall flat. A triumph of figuration and hyperrealism, trompe-l'oeil is in the spotlight at the Musée Marmottan-Monet. Paris-16th From October 17 to March 2

Illustration : CADIOU "La déchirure"

An Apollo named Adam

With his posture of androgynous Venus, his hips swaying like Elvis Presley and his hand seeming to sensually play with the foliage of the vine hiding his sex, here is an Adam who has nothing medieval about him. And yet, this real Apollo in the style of Jim Morrison ahead of his time was considered old-fashioned in the 13th century. Result: this sculpture with rare nudity for its time was moved from the transept of Notre-Dame? This exclusion earned it to be saved from the flames!

Illustration : l'Apollon de Notre-Dame

Art Basel Paris is popular

France has become the 4th largest art market in the world and the 1st in Europe. And the Art Basel Paris fair has the stated objective of further strengthening the visibility of French artists internationally. With 64 participating galleries, the event, which premiered in 2022, is doing even better. It takes advantage of Art Basel's qualitative image and its global network to allow invited artists to display prices higher than the average of other competing fairs. The art of making talent rhyme with money. Something to think about.

Illustration : Nina Childress, 1072 Sharon (grosse tête), 2020
© Adagp, Paris, 2022 / Photo DR

Caillebotte: the magnificent loser

Among the Impressionists, we know Monet, Cézanne, Renoir, Degas… And Caillebotte? Victim of his image as a rentier organizing exhibitions for his less wealthy friends, Gustave Caillebotte had some success during his lifetime but did not go down in history. His painting entitled Rue de Paris is more famous than he is. But if his Raboteurs de parquet divided critics, his Partie de bézigue was long considered the twin sister of Manet's legendary Déjeuner sur l'herbe. And yet, the authentic artist that Caillebotte was suffered from a reputation as a dilettante because of his many passions other than painting, ranging from sailing to philately. Should artists be monomaniacs to be taken seriously?

Clothes make the painter

Delacroix was a dandy. He communicated his taste for elegant clothing to almost all the figures who populate his paintings. This fashion show was an opportunity to develop a very particular art of representing with realism and love of detail the costume as much as the one who wears it. Embroidered fabrics, brightly colored fabrics, learned folds and very worked drapes say as much about the spirit of their time as they address winks to mythology in a veritable festival of colors. To be seen during a catwalk as part of the exhibition Nu commehabiller. Delacroix et le vêtements

Musée national Eugène-Delacroix, 6 rue Furstemberg Paris-6e. Jusqu'au 3 février.

Illustration : Autoportrait au gilet vert

Send your application!

Attention amateurs! The Salon d'Automne wants to increase the number of its applications. A salon for artists made by artists, it receives on average some 30,000 visitors every year, including many collectors. An excellent opportunity to develop your network and play a good role in selling, the Salon d'Automne exhibits painting, sculpture, architecture, and digital or environmental art. And it intends to open up to design and cinema. It's up to you to convince the thirty artists who make up its jury for next year.

121st Salon d'Automne

from October 23 to 27

Ephemeral pavilions, avenue des Champs Élysées Paris-8th

Mystical street art

What a strange idea to organize a street art exhibition under the gold of a papal palace! To present the work of Miss. Tic, the Palais des Papes in Avignon did not hesitate to strip down to its best clothes. While some decrepit walls provided a perfect raw backdrop for works designed for the street, other more majestic rooms clashed too glaringly with the graphic style of Radhia Aounallah, known as Miss. Tic. To offer the artist who died in 2022 the tribute she deserves, the owners of the place have therefore stripped them of their ennoblement by composing, in the great chapel of Clement VI, entire panels of cinder blocks that are less prestigious but much more in keeping with the subject. Who can do more can do less.

Miss. Tic To life, to love

Palais des Papes Avignon

until January 5

Attention, nasty art

"We are not faithful to reality. We are faithful to ourselves." Faced with the great return of mimesis, quoting the New York photographer William Klein is somewhat out of place. This is because Klein, who died in 2022, recounted his era more than he showed it. A champion of agitprop, he was subversive by nature. Let's say that it was this nature that he depicted objectively.

William Klein. Play, play, play.

Musée d'art contemporain de Montélimar (26)

Illustration: Victoire Ali, Kinshasa, Zaire, 1974
© William Klein Estate

Holy cow!

There's enough to make a big deal out of it! Launched as a preview at Art Basel Paris, here is a limited edition collector's edition of The Laughing Cow box signed by Mel Bochner, Daniel Buren, Wim Delvoye, Hans-Peter Feldman, Cido Meireles, Rosemarie Trockel, Martha Wilson...Illustration: The Laughing Cow by Martha Wilson

Article written by Eric Sembach