Nikolay tolmachev


Désherbage

It is between suavity and lust that the Ukrainian artist Nikolay Tolmachev unveils his latest watercolors for a new exhibition entitled «Weeding » at the Da-End gallery. Tolmachev’s ode to spring deploys a floral universe of the most lascivious, where the lily of the valley is next to the nipple and the
dandelion to the ass, while the bouquet turns out to be immodest…

Thus his latest creations echo a nature between the garden of delights and the one of torments, for when the Gerbera rose – symbol of youth and
seduction – becomes a thorny thistle, isn’t it the fascinating ambivalence of nature that Tolmachev’s works offer us? “Vegetal, mineral, organic, animal and human, moods and secretions, fully realistic, in very soft tones, whose juxtaposition creates, if not uneasiness, at least an unquenchable questioning. But where does Talent Nikolay Tolmachev, the TNT, come from ? What springs he awakens in us that make us desire with passion
what he creates ? It seems to me that this is what makes it so charming: the ambiguity. Hequestions the representation by proposing a shifted interpretation, surprising the spectator with a puzzling detail.

“At first sight, his subject is almost insignificant in its banality; then the low blow arrives where one least expects it. He throws painting at our stomachs with Renaissance in the brush, classicism in the palette, outrageousness in the realization. He offers us a dream from which the awakening can be rough : the drawing is there, in front of us. The dream dissipates, leaving room for… frustration, a practice in which Nikolay Tolmachev is a master. But who knows? Soon the Troubled NewTemptation will take over the walls of DaEnd.” (Mony Vibescu).

May 13 – June 5, 2021

GALERIE DA END

17 rue Guénégaud 75006 Paris

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Toshio Saeki

Toshio Saeki (1945-2019) is an illustrator and an icon of the Japanese underground. His work is at the crossroads of the Japanese traditions
of shunga (traditional erotic engravings) and yōkai (representation of spirits, demons and ghosts). He also renewed the genre of eroguro, a Japanese artistic and literary movement which appeared around 1930, combining eroticism, macabre and grotesque elements. «Its monstrous eroticism is all the more powerful because it relies on the power of evocation and unfolds in a very pure drawing. Hergé plunged into the perverse thoughts of an Edogawa Ranpo.» (Marius Chapuis for Liberation)


Galerie Da-End is delighted to unveil a new set of silkscreen prints by this avant-garde artist. The never-before presented corpus – which completes the first series exhibited in 2010 – is the result of a close collaboration during 2009 between the gallery and master silkscreen artist Fumie Taniyama, under the attentive direction of Toshio Saeki himself.

« Saeki never ceased to develop his remarkable talents as a draughtsman and colorist in order to explore ever more deeply the obscure regions
of the unconscious. The two main ingredients of his art are the conciseness of the line – the result of extreme self-control and unfailing lucidity – and his passion for eros (or ero, a Japanese term he prefers, because, according to the artist, the idea of death is also present). In other words: a clear line and dark intentions. Saeki’s sulfurous universe is utero-centric. Everything revolves around this cyclopean eye which is at the same time matrix, frightening cave, shelter, source of pleasure and Pandora’s box. Each of his works constitute as many thresholds and hidden passages leading directly from the waking state to the state of dream or nightmare, through the art of line. Each drawing tells a story. There are voyeurs, perverts and tortured. » (David Rosenberg)

February 13 – March 27, 2021

GALERIE DA-END

17 rue Guénégaud 75004 Paris

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Luxes

Devising and curating an exhibition on luxury through just over 100 objects involves intense scrutiny. This becomes even more evident when considering that the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, an institution that has celebrated the relationship between art and industry since its founding in 1864, holds over 800,000 objects, many of which embrace luxury in its endless forms. As early as the mid-19th century, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, then known as the Union Centrale des Beaux-Arts Appliqués à l’Industrie, began receiving donations from prominent industrialists and collectors. Amassing important objects from around the world that often symbolized a country’s cultural success or perceived technical superiority, the concept of luxury has resonated within the collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs since its founding.

Highlighting works that represent the story of human fascination with beauty, rare materials, flawless execution and the transmission of well-guarded techniques up to the modern day, Luxes at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs unveils objects from the ancient world. Objects on display from this time, for example, include an Egyptian makeup spoon, a utensil that symbolized the worship of the divine) on loan from the Musée du Louvre, the Boscoreale Treasure recovered from the aftermath of the ancient eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and a zoomorphic hedgehog vase from approximately 3500-3100 BC, the oldest piece in the exhibition. These artifacts illustrate the archeological perspective of luxury, where objects were carefully preserved both intentionally and accidentally.

The Salon 1900, permanently within the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, and designed by George Hoentschel for the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs as part of the 1900 Universal Exhibition, is a perfect example of the Art Nouveau style of the time. During the same period, haute couture was born when Charles Frederick Worth revolutionized the very definition of fashion by creating the blueprint of a modern fashion house. Additional fashion and design highlights in the exhibition include “the little black dress” by Gabrielle Chanel, the straw marquetry décors of Jean-Michel Frank, in addition to works by Hermès, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Van Cleef & Arpels and Cartier.

In 2020, exhibiting luxury also means addressing the realities of the present day, from the physical preservation of humanity’s oldest and most cherished objects to the recontextualization of those items through the lens of current societal and political movements. In the modern, globalized world, luxury is seemingly determined by the caché of a brand name or its logo. If some houses now seem to embody their identity as the very idea of luxury and owning a piece of that identity is the consumer’s endorsement, Luxes poses a rebuttal: to offer an ancient as well as contemporary context to understand what makes luxury one of the most singular and symbolic features of civilizations.

du 15 octobre 2020 au 2 mai 2021

Musée des Arts Décoratifs
107 rue de Rivoli 75001 Paris
01 44 55 57 50

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Giorgio de Chirico

Metaphysical painting

The exhibition retraces the career and the artistic and philosophic influences of the artist Giorgio de Chirico from Munich to Turin, then to Paris where he discovered the artistic avant-garde of his era, and lastly Ferrare. The connections between the painter – discovered by Apollinaire and subsequently backed by the art dealer Paul Guillaume – and the Parisian cultural and literary circles will be highlighted as never before.

Born in Greece and trained in the fount of classical culture and late German Romanticism, de Chirico developed the foundations of a new artistic exploration alongside his younger brother Alberto Savinio. A student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich as of 1908, he discovered the thinking of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer as well as the works of Böcklin and Klinger. After travelling to Milan then Florence, it was in France, and more specifically Paris, as of autumn 1911, that he established his unique visual vocabulary through contact with the modernist artistic revolutions. He was quickly noticed by numerous artistic celebrities of the time, among whom Guillaume Apollinaire, Maurice Raynal, André Salmon, André Breton, Paul Éluard and Jean Paulhan were the first to take an interest in and promote his work.

The exhibition thus comes into its own at the Musée de l’Orangerie alongside the figure of Paul Guillaume, the first art dealer to work with Giorgio de Chirico. On his return to Italy in 1915, he and his brother Savinio were sent to Ferrare for military reasons, where he continued his artistic research. This period (June 1915-December 1918) provided an opportunity for painters Carlo Carrà and Giorgio Morandi to get to know the two brothers, thus resulting in the creation of what was later to be known as the “metaphysical movement” which brings the exhibition to a close.

September 16 – December 14, 2020

MUSEE DE L’ORANGERIE

place de la Concorde, Jardin des Tuileries 75001 Paris

01 44 77 80 07

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Harper’s Bazaar. First in Fashion

À To celebrate the reopening of its fashion galleries, entirely renovated thanks to the patronage of Stephen and Christine Schwarzman, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs will present a major exhibition dedicated to Harper’s Bazaar. Harper’s Bazaar. First in Fashion (Harper’s Bazaar. Premier magazine de mode), chronicles the milestones of the magazine and its evolution.

One hundred and fifty two years of fashion history will be summed up through the vision of the great artists and photographers who contributed to the Bazaar’s unique style, from Man Ray, Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol to Richard Avedon, and Peter Lindbergh.

Sixty couture and ready-to-wear pieces, most of them drawn from the museum’s collection, along with loans of iconic dresses, will be displayed next to images of them as they were originally featured in the magazine. The exhibition will also include a special tribute to three major figures in Bazaar’s history: Carmel Snow, Alexey Brodovitch, and Diana Vreeland. Together, they created the modern aesthetics both in fashion and graphic design that are still as influential today. The architect and designer Adrien Gardère, who oversaw the renovation of the galleries, designed the exhibition.

February 28, 2020 – January 4 2021

MAD Paris

107-111 rue de Rivoli 75001 Paris

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Drawings Without Reserves

The Musée des Arts Décoratifs celebrates the richness of its Cabinet of Drawings with an exceptional exhibition showcasing masterpieces from its current collection. With more than 200,000 works ranging from the 16th century to present day, and from Europe and all the way to Japan, the museum’s collection is one of the largest in the world. Drawings by Masters such as Le Brun, Watteau, Fragonard, Degas and Rodin will be displayed alongside the work of ornamentalists and decorators like Chareau and Royère, in addition to jewelry and haute couture designs.

To showcase the collection’s diversity, 500 works of art have been selected. They will be presented in the form of an symbolic alphabet representative of the major themes of the art of drawing (A for Architecture; D for Decor; S for Seduction, and so forth). Designed by the H5 collective, “Drawings Without Reserves” is an invitation to discover the complete repertoire of artists, significant iconographic ensembles and the astounding discoveries made over recent years.

June 23, 2020 – January 31, 2021

MAD Paris

107-111 rue de Rivoli 75001 Paris

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Apparatus

Le Voyage

A journey through the collection of New York-based design studio Apparatus, Le Voyage features the studio’s lighting, furniture and objects in an environment conceived by Creative Director Gabriel Hendifar. Founded in 2012, the studio draws on a vocabulary of desire to explore both object and environment, interpreting the historical and cultural through a modern lens.

Le Voyage features Isfahan, a special textile collaboration with Pierre Frey woven by the recently reinvigorated mill, Le Manach. Isfahan uses the intricate style of Persian marquetry called Khatam as a point of departure. The textile balances ancient and modern geometry, remaining faithful to its Persian heritage and to the studio’s rich, atemporal language.

Photos Alexis Toureau

by appointment

www.triodedesign.com

ou 06 07 85 57 61

TRIODE

28 rue Jacob 75006 Paris

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Studi & Schizzi

The Fondation Custodia exhibits 86 of the 600 Italian drawings in its collection, executed by artists from the Renaissance to the Baroque period (Filippino Lippi, Andrea del Sarto, Federico Barocci, the Carracci family, Palma Giovane, Guercino, …).

Before drawings became collectible in their own right, drawing constituted one of the essential elements of the artist’s work in the studio. The sketch drawn on the page was the first step to creation; it was the most immediate and most natural visual translation of the inspiration of the artist’s ideas. The representation of the human figure was a major preoccupation during the Renaissance period and one of the constant interests of Italian art over the centuries. Striving for a narrative ideal in an image which, by its very nature, is fixed in two dimensions, the artists were keen to represent their figures in eloquent proportions and attitudes.

The exhibition highlights the manner in which artists managed to resolve formal problems thanks to the practice of drawing. How to convey the position of the models and the links uniting them ? How to translate the effects of light and shade on bodies and on drapery ? How to arrange the figures in a confined space, corresponding to the shape and size of the final work ?

February 15 – May 10, 2020

FONDATION CUSTODIA

121 rue de Lille 75007 Paris

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Gjertrud Hals

Sanctum

Maria Wettergren presents the solo exhibition Sanctum by the pioneering textile artist, Gjertrud Hals (b. 1948, Norway). Over the past twenty years, Hals has visited and collected inspiration from “places marked by rites, myths or by significant events”, such as Varanasi, Mount Sinai, Kyoto, or the Forbidden City.

The souls of these places (anima locus) form the core of this exhibition, in which Hals shows her most recent works, made from various types of metal and fibers. Chosen for their intrinsic beauty, Hals composes with materials from recycling sites or objects found on the beach or on the roadside, such as the reddish copper wire of electrical cables, the ring-pulls of beer cans, a fragment from a clock, or a piece of plastic jewelry… The artist weaves, knits and hammers these so-called poor materials delicately like a goldsmith, transforming them into refined grids, vibrating sculptures, poetic dream-catchers. Through her delicate yet powerful works, this ‘artist-alchemist’ shares with us her personal wonder at metamorphosis, whether it is a material that she transfigures from waste into art, or a culture she elevates from low into high, all the while maintaining a trace of its original state.

Gjertrud Hals is considered as an important pioneer in the field of Scandinavian textile art. She has been one of the redefining figures by liberating textile art from the loom and displaying it in space as three-dimensional sculpture.

Born in 1948 on the island of Finnøya, her upbringing on this little island is profoundly anchored in her art, and her relationship to the region’s nature and culture is deep and complex. The Nordic mythology is a great source of inspiration to the artist, but it is her interest in feminism and women’s culture that draws her towards the new East European wave of women artists exploring the sculptural potential of textile, “fiber art”, such as Sheila Hicks, Claire Zesler et Magdalena Abakanowicz. Hals’ works have been acquired by private and public collections, such as Mobilier National / Les Gobelins, France; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo; American Craft Museum, New York; The Museum of Decorative Arts, Lausanne; and The Bellerive Museum, Zürich.

February 7 – July 25, 2020

GALERIE MARIA WETTERGREN

18 rue Guénégaud 75006 Paris

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Claudia Andujar

La Lutte Yanomami

The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain is pleased to announce the largest exhibition to date dedicated to the work of Claudia Andujar. For over five decades, she has devoted her life to photographing and protecting the Yanomami, one of Brazil’s largest indigenous group.

“I am connected to the indigenous, to the land, to the primary struggle. All of that moves me deeply. Everything seems essential. Perhaps I have always searched for the answer to the meaning of life in this essential core. I was driven there, to the Amazon jungle, for this reason. It was instinctive. I was looking to find myself.” Claudia Andujar

Based on four years of research in the photographer’s archive, this new exhibition curated by Thyago Nogueira for the Instituto Moreira Salles in Brazil, will focus on her work from this period, bringing together over three hundred photographs, a series of Yanomami drawings as well as her audiovisual installation Genocide of the Yanomami: Death of Brazil. The exhibition will explore Claudia Andujar’s extraordinary contribution to the art of photography as well as her major role as a human rights activist in the defense of the Yanomami. It is divided into two sections reflecting the dual nature of a career committed to both aesthetics and activism. The first section presents the photographs from her first seven years living with the Yanomami, showing how she grappled with the challenges of visually interpreting a complex culture. The second features the work she produced during her period of activism, when she began to use her photography as a tool among others for political change.

Claudia Andujar was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland in 1931 and currently lives and works in São Paolo. She grew up in Transylvania, which at the time had recently been incorporated to Romania after years of Hungarian domination. During WWII, Claudia’s father, a Hungarian Jew, was deported to Dachau where he was killed along with most of her paternal relatives. Claudia Andujar fled with her mother to Switzlerand, immigrated first to the United States in 1946, then to Brazil in 1955 where she began a career as a photojournalist.

Claudia Andujar first met the Yanomami in 1971 while working on an article about the Amazon for Realidade magazine. Fascinated by the culture of this isolated community, she decided to embark on an in-depth photographic essay on their daily life after receiving a Guggenheim fellowship to support the project. From the very beginning, her approach differed greatly from the straightforward documentary style of her contemporaries. The photographs she made during this period show how she experimented with a variety of photographic techniques in an attempt to visually translate the shamanic culture of the Yanomami. Applying Vaseline to the lens of her camera, using flash devices, oil lamps and infrared film, she created visual distortions, streaks of light and saturated colors, thus imbuing her images with a feeling of the otherworldly.

Claudia Andujar also developed a series of sober black-and-white portraits that capture the grace, dignity and humanity of the Yanomami. Focusing closely on faces and body fragments, she tightly frames her images, using a dramatic chiaroscuro to create a feeling of intimacy and draw attention to individual psychological states.

Alongside the many photographs taken during this period, the exhibition will also present a selection of Yanomami drawings. After years photographing the Yanomami herself, Claudia Andujar felt it was important to provide them with the opportunity to represent their own conceptions of nature and the universe. She thus initiated a drawing project, equipping members of the community with markers and paper. A selection of these drawings representing Yanomami myths, rituals, and shamanic visions will be presented in the exhibition.

By the late 1970s, Claudia Andujar had reached a turning point in her career. The construction of a transcontinental highway in the Amazon, initiated by Brazil’s military government, opened up the region to deforestation as well as invasive agricultural programs, bringing epidemics to the Yanomami and leading to the annihilation of entire communities. This situation reminded her of the genocide in Europe, and its impact on her was such that she decided to deepen her commitment to the Yanomami struggle. In 1978 she founded, with the missionary Carlo Zacquini and the anthropologist Bruce Albert, the Commissão Pro-Yanomani (CCPY) and began a fourteen-year-long campaign to designate their homeland. At this point in her career photography, she put her artistic project aside and used photography primarily as a means to raise awareness and support her cause.

In the early 80s Claudia Andujar took a series of black-and-white portraits of the Yanomami as part of a vaccination campaign. They are wearing numbered labels to help identify them for their medical records. The artist was struck by how these labels recalled the numerical tattoos of those ‘branded for death’ during the Holocaust. She later revisited these portraits and created the Marcados series, which reveal the ambiguity inherent in this act of labelling even if it is ultimately for their survival. In the exhibition, we will present previously unseen photographs from this series.

One of the other major works presented in this section is Genocide of the Yanomami: Death of Brazil (1989-2018). This audiovisual installation, which has been recreated specifically for the exhibition, was originally made in reaction to the decrees signed in 1989, which broke up Yanomami territory in nineteen separate reservations. Produced with photos from Claudia Andujar’s archive, re-photographed using lights and filters, the projection leads the visitor from a world of harmony to one devastated by the progress of Western civilization. A soundtrack composed by Marlui Miranda combining Yanomami chants and experimental music accompanies this installation.

In 1992, following the campaign led by Claudia Andujar, Carlo Zacquini, Bruce Albert and the Yanomami shaman and spokesman, Davi Kopenawa, the Brazilian government agreed to legally demarcate Yanomami territory. Recognized on the eve of the UN Conference on Environment and Development, this territory is still threatened by illegal mining and logging.

The work of Claudia Andujar provides both an unparalleled glimpse into the complex cosmological worldview of the Yanomami and a powerful political indictment of the violence perpetrated against them. The explosive force of her photography remains relevant today in view of the renewed threats facing the Yanomami and the Amazon basin.

January – September, 2020

FONDATION CARTIER

261 boulevard Raspail 75014 Paris

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The Supermarket of Images

We live in a world that is increasingly saturated with images.
Their number is growing so exponentially – each day more than three billion images are shared on social networks – that the space of visibility seems to be literally inundated. As if it can no longer contain the images that constitute it. As if there were no more room, no more interstices between the images.

This brings us closer to the point that Walter Benjamin imagined, almost a hundred years ago now, as “the one hundred percent image space”.
Faced with such an overproduction of images, questions need to be asked, more than ever before, about their storage, management, transportation (even if it is electronic) and the paths they follow, their weight, the fluidity or viscosity of their exchanges, their fluctuating values – in short, questions about their economy.

In the book from which this exhibition is derived1, the economic aspect of the life of images is called iconomy.
The works and artists chosen for the exhibition cast a keen and watchful eye over these issues. On the one hand, they reflect the upheavals that currently affect the economy in general, whether in terms of unprecedentedly large storage spaces, the scarcity of raw materials, labour and its mutations into intangible forms, or in terms of value and its new manifestations, such as cryptocurrencies.

On the other hand, however, these works also question what happens to visibility in the age of globalized iconomies: caught up in an incessant circulation, the image – any image – appears increasingly like a freeze frame (arrêt sur image), that is as a temporary crystallization, as the provisionally stabilized balance of the speeds that constitute it.
In the supermarket on display here, images of the economy always involve the economy of the image. And vice versa, as if they were the recto and verso of the same page.

February 11 – June 7, 2020

JEU DE PAUME

1 place de la Concorde 75001 Paris

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Pierre Soulages

Pierre Soulages, “painter of black and light,” is a major figure of non-figurative painting, recognized as such since the start of his career after World War II. Born on December 24, 1919, in Rodez (south of France), Soulages, who continues to produce work at a steady pace, is celebrating his 100th birthday at the end of this year. To mark this event, the Musée du Louvre is devoting an exceptional exhibition to the artist in the prestigious Salon Carré, which is located between the Galerie d’Apollon and the Grande Galerie and used to house the Paris Salon.

This tribute exhibition traces the chronological development of Soulages’s work from 1946 to the present day, through a limited selection of pieces created over eight decades of artistic research. Soulages’s exceptionally long career is illustrated by some of his major works, most of them from prominent French and foreign museums. The exhibition covers every period, with a focus on the outrenoir polyptychs. It also presents a number of very large paintings executed in recent months, demonstrating the remarkable vitality of Soulages, who has never stopped working.

December 11 – March 9, 2020

MUSEE du LOUVRE

75001 Paris

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