Artists

Claire Tabouret, Joris Van de Moortel, Jérôme Zonder, Roméo Mivekannin, Valérie Belin, Sarkis, Andres Serrano, Philippe Cognée, Ronan Barrot, Nina Childress, Sophie Kuijken, Eugène Leroy, Caroline Mesquita, Yan Pei-Ming, Wang Keping

Press release

Galerie Nathalie Obadia is pleased to present Gillet et Compagnie, a group exhibition featuring the oeuvres of Roger-Edgar Gillet alongside those of other major artists of the contemporary scene. The works of Ronan Barrot, Valérie Belin, Nina Childress, Philippe Cognée, Sophie Kuijken, Eugène Leroy, Caroline Mesquita, Roméo Mivekannin, Yan Pei-Ming, Sarkis, Andres Serrano, Claire Tabouret, Joris Van de Moortel, Wang Keping, and Jérôme Zonder, are brought together in a series of dialogues around the subject of the portrait. Although portraiture has its early roots in Antiquity and has undergone numerous transformations in response to the prevalent artistic codes of various historical periods, it nevertheless remains a thriving genre and retains its position at the heart of artistic expression. The artists presented within this show are an integral part of this ongoing tradition, exploring their subjects from both artistic and philosophical points of view. In this way, Gillet et Compagnie puts forward a fresh reading of a timeless genre, seen through the prism of our own era.

As an iconic figure of the Second School of Paris, Roger-Edgar Gillet (1924-2004) occupies a central position in the exhibition. Fourteen of his works are on show. They do not however appear as identifiable faces but rather as heads - or even bare bones - sometimes reduced to their most basic structural forms. These representations have been reshaped and even deformed by a vigorous technique and the use of dense material that the artist has worked to the limit of exhaustion. It is this matter, due to its texture, that transforms and distorts the works, blurring, erasing and reinventing their contours to the rhythm of the artist's brushstrokes.