ArtParis at the Grand Palais: A Project-Based Fair in Paris to Be Held at the End of March

PARIS.- Exhibition projects designed by five galleries for ArtParis will lead us on a discovery of the contemporary creation coming out of China and Russia, and allow us to delve into the work of plastic artist Philippe Pasqua and photographer Albert Watson through two solo shows; lastly, imagine a Faraday Cage devoted to contemporary art….

Questioning Chinese contemporary art at the Eli Klein Fine Art stand (New York, Beijing)
Established in New York and now a recent arrival in Beijing, the Eli Klein Fine Art gallery will participate in ArtParis for the first time with a selection of Chinese artists expressing the cultural mutations China is currently experiencing. Zhang Dali belongs to that generation of artists and intellectuals who fled China shortly after the events of Tiananmen Square in 1989. Upon returning to China after his exile, he was confronted with the denial of the political class and an experience of disillusionment. Through his work, he punctuates the societal upheavals that are shattering traditional communities. For instance, with “Heads” we can discover the resin-cast faces of migrant workers who have left rural areas to move to cities, whereas other recent works by Zhang Dali reinterpret the imagery of communist propaganda.

In their midst are sleeping the “Unknown Creatures” of Shen Shaomin. Working like an anthropologist, he collects real animal bones to build a bestiary of fantastic creatures that both fascinate and frighten us, for these monsters, which symbolize death, nevertheless appear to be on the verge of awakening… And yet, the artist
warns of the dangers of human intervention in Nature.

Philippe Pasqua one-man-show at the Laurent Strouk gallery (Paris) stand
The Laurent Strouk gallery will devote its stand to Philippe Pasqua by showing his most recent monumental sculptures, particularly a Ferrari sheathed in leather and tattooed. We can also discover his recent oil paintings and works on paper, which are as impressive by their size as by the intensity of their subjects. “His characters explode the gauge of normality, blur the order of propriety, and disturb the registers of wellintentioned honourability. Philippe Pasqua becomes imbued with them and the truth springs forth, bare and beautiful, strikingly photogenic as is the human condition in its mysteries and raw poetry…,” as critic Jean Corbu puts it. On Pasqua’s vanities which are present at ArtParis, he further comments: “When Philippe Pasqua composes the head of a dead person, he conjures up meditation and allegory through his radical interpretation of the invisible.” Through his fascinating work on the human form, Pasqua renders the flesh in painting and the soul as food for thought.

Olivier Waltman (Paris) gallery presents “Faraday Cage” conceived by Noart
The Olivier Waltman gallery is calling upon one of its artists, Noart, whose metal design the gallery has been showing for five years. But the gallery’s intention was to have him participate as a set designer and decorator (movies, advertising): to
build a stand completely out of metal that resonates completely with the work of the gallery’s other artists on exhibit at ArtParis. Noart’s project—a crazy, extravagant, and Jules-Vernesque homage inspired by the metal architecture of the Grand-Palais—is entitled The Faraday Cage (France). Like him, photographers Jean-Pierre Attal (France) and Aleix Plademunt (Spain), and painters Jonathan Huxley (UK) and Jorge Enrique (USA) question the conditions of a hypertechnological and ultra-fast world and the place it holds for humanity.

Contemporary Russian creation on exhibit at the Orel Art gallery (Paris) stand
The Orel Art gallery, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2011, continues to promote the Russian contemporary scene. The gallery will present well-established artists, such as Dubossarsky & Vinogradov, Andrei Molodkin, and Evgeny Yufit, as well as young, upcoming talent, such as painters Ivan Plusch and Valery Chtak. They draw on their own experiences and past to highlight in their works an observation of a loss of rationality in current society. Current society is called into question through experimentation with various types of media, each one aimed at deconstructing its cultural references. Orel Art, which is furthermore open to international creation, will also present the intentionally-damaged canvasses by English-born artist Rupert Shrive, for whom Ilona Orel will inaugurate a second personal exhibition at the gallery starting on 15 March.

acte2galerie (Paris) will devote a one-man-show to photographer Albert Watson and is inviting Maison Particulière as guest
acte2galerie will present a solo show dedicated to the great Scottish photographer Albert Watson. After graphic art and cinema studies, this artist, although blind in one eye from birth, chose to devote himself to photography. Albert Watson’s particular style quickly established itself, drawing the attention of American and European fashion magazines such as Mademoiselle, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, etc. Watson surprises us through the tender, filtered colour palette of his portraits and landscapes. His photographs are impressive through their brilliance, depth, and magnificence. His way of lighting his subjects, especially objects of fetishism and models, creates a quasi-meditative atmosphere.

For ArtParis, acte2galerie is inviting Maison Particulière, the space dreamed up by Amaury and Myriam de Solages to promote Art in Belgium and reinvent the world of a private home inhabited by collectors and their collections. They will present a colossal work by Angelo Musco. Entitled “Tehom” and measuring 14 metres long and 3 metres high, it addresses the theme of birth. During the show, American performer Natalie White will fill the space with choreography blending a feeling of weightlessness (in a Plexiglas case filled with water) with the unfathomable sensation of abandon.

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