Finally, temperatures are rising making it enjoyable to stroll through the sunny streets of Paris while visiting some galleries. At least, this is what Vogue France suggests this May. From the first solo exhibition in France of American artist Gwen O'Neil to the unforgettable works of painter Marc Chagall, the editors have selected the must-see exhibitions in Paris.
6 exhibitions not to be missed in May in Paris (and elsewhere in France)
Originally from Miami, Florida, Hernan Bas is an intriguing portraitist whose solitary male figures populate canvases that are peaceful and slightly disturbing. As always, his figures are shrouded in doubt, at the heart of profound introspection. It's as if the painter had captured them in that exact moment, unaware, for a brief moment of rare intimacy. A suspended moment. When asked about these men, trapped in their solitude, Bas likes to say that they are artists who never existed, as if to give them an unsuspected quality, a hint of mystery. At least, that's the idea behind his most famous series, titled The Conceptualists. However, at Gallery Perrotin, the artist has chosen to present another of his favorite subjects.
Graduate of the New World School of the Arts in Miami in 1996, Hernan Bas, like many other painters before and after him, is very interested in the borderline between reality and fantasy. In the First and Last, his exhibition at gallery Perrotin presents new portraits, with extraordinary references this time where reality is twisted at his whim. The starting point for his reflection? The time when a tourist was caught engraving his name on the Colosseum in Rome. “Even if this act was far from admirable, it reminded me of the kind of places to which people feel the need to attach their names (quite literally), says Bas in a statement. It is an act of attempted immortality on a minor scale”. From the Leaning Tower of Pisa to Picasso's Guernica, the painter's imaginary characters come face to face with History, in atmospheres that are both strange and delicate. Until the 1st of June 2024.
Hernan Bas at gallery Perrotin, until the 1st of June 2024.
Comparative exhibitions are undoubtedly one of the great successes of the Louis Vuitton Foundation. The connection between the works of Claude Monet and Joan Mitchell is just one example. It was a deep and fascinating appearance that provided new insight into their careers, particularly Monet's abstract period, which is much less well-known than his Water Lilies. Beginning May 4th, the Louis Vuitton Foundation will do what it has always excelled at, putting Henri Matisse's work face to face with that of Ellsworth Kelly.
Titled 'L'Atelier rouge', referencing one of his masterpieces from 1911, the Matisse exhibition gathers the works from his renowned red studio for the first time, complemented by previously unreleased archival documents and pieces, offering insights into the painting's origins and the journey behind its creation. The exhibition devoted to Ellsworth Kelly's art is titled ‘Forms and Colours (1949 - 2015)’, to emphasize the influence of Matisse on his vision. Matisse's radical decision to saturate the surface with a layer of red paint captivated Ellsworth Kelly, ultimately reshaping the trajectory of his life, which began in 1923 in New York State - just 100 years ago. This exhibition is therefore an anniversary, and the opening of a dialogue to find new avenues of reflection, as much on the disciple as on his master.
Matisse, L'Atelier rouge at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, beginning May 4, 2024.
There is something striking about the ultra-realistic works of Japanese artist Tomona Matsukawa. Born in 1987 in Aichi, she graduated from Tama University in 2011, and quickly specialized in oil painting. Her works, however, have a distinctive quality. Born from conversations with women of her generation, her portraits depict remnants of everyday life, like fragments of banality, made exceptional by the same process. These realistic canvases take on a dramatic aspect, whether they represent a mobile phone screen, a delicate earring, or a damaged notebook. It's a way of highlighting life's great vulnerability by rendering even the smallest moments beautiful.
From the 16th of May to June 29, 2024, the Ceysson & Bénétière Gallery will display a collection of works by Tomona Matsukawa created in the heart of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, in La Chaulme, during a residency inaugurated by the gallery itself in March 2024.
Tomona Matsukawa at the Gallery Ceysson & Bénétière, starting 16 May 2024 (Paris).
Crossed Wires, an exhibition created by Les Filles du Calvaire gallery, has the honor of presenting the work of not one but two Dutch artists: Katinka Lampe, whose seventh exhibition at the gallery, and her guest, emerging artist Janine van Oene. The exhibition is a dialogue between two women with distinct identities and creative processes, at the crossroads between abstraction and figurative art, lyricism and formalism. Nevertheless, despite their differences, the emotion that permeates their art serves as a common ground.
Fascinated by notions of identity and social relationships, but mostly by color, the paintings of Katinka Lampe (born in 1963 in Tilburg, Netherlands) are literal and direct, yet they also have a whimsical quality that borders on the surreal. For her, the portrait becomes a concept, and she avoids capturing her subjects too formally, preferring to retain their most distinctive features. It is this fragmented aspect that links with the abstract universe of Janine van Oene, who is over twenty years younger. She is based in Amsterdam where she paints strange shapes, as if imagined in her alternate realities. Seeing their canvases side by side highlights the similarities that run through their creative minds.
Crossed Wires at Les Filles du Calvaire Gallery (Paris), starting 16 May 2024.
Founded in 1924 by Katia Granoff, the Larock-Granoff Gallery in Paris was one of the first to be run by a woman. In Paris in the 1920s, the gallery owner defended and promoted Claude Monet and Marc Chagall's works long before the art world became interested in their now-cult realms. Chagall, in particular, was the very first artist supported by Katia Granoff. It's an intimate bond, and one that is now being celebrated in a new exhibition, as the gallery celebrates its 100th birthday.
In one of the oldest galleries in Paris, more than twenty works from the series Les Fables de La Fontaine will be on show for the very first time. Produced between 1926 and 1927, the series was commissioned by art dealer, publisher, and writer Ambroise Vollard to illustrate the famous eponymous book. It was a choice that was misunderstood at the time: why ask a Russian painter to interpret the most French of poets? It was precisely this paradox that interested Vollard. The result is a series of free and exuberant works, on show from 16 May, as well as ten more recent works by the artist.
Marc Chagall, a beautiful dream at Larock-Granoff Gallery (Paris), starting 16 May 2024.
Gwen O'Neil, an abstract painter born in 1992 in New York and based in Los Angeles, has made nature the nerve center of her canvases. A living heart, so much so that her brushstrokes impose themselves like powerful movements, as strong as the most violent winds and the most intense tides. To achieve this, she stamps her canvases with a precise method, aiming to create her recognizable swirls at a single glance. It's a way for the artist to bring cosmic and everyday elements into dialogue, as she admires the colorful twilight of Los Angeles every evening, the spiraling shells that populate her beaches, and the hypnotic shapes of migrating starlings.
The Almine Rech Gallery, which has been based in Paris since 1997, is hosting the American artist's first French exhibition. "Gwen O'Neil's work immediately captivated me when I first saw one of her paintings, says the gallery owner in a press release. The fascinating subject of light and space is at the heart of her work, as it is for other artists we exhibit, but with Gwen O'Neil, it is through the medium of paint. Her work is unique in that she paints what you might call abstract pictures, but it is a vision of space, of the spectrum of colors in the sky where choreographies of murmuration, wavelengths of light, and color occur." Entitled Over the Ridges and Through the Passes, the exhibition focuses on the meteorological phenomena that fascinate the artist, and that rock his daily life in Southern California.
Over the Ridges and through the Passes at gallery Almine Rech (Paris), starting 11 May 2024.
Translated by Natasha Hersman
More culture on Vogue.fr :
Following in the footsteps of Amy Winehouse through Camden Town
Florence Pugh's 6 absolute must-see films