Aurélie Nemours, the grand old lady of French abstraction, died in 2005. Painting was always essential to her life—she began painting at an early age, initially just for herself.

The public didn’t discover her work until she was forty-three, a deliberate move that meant the oeuvre she left behind was fully mature.

Nemours was the embodiment of humility, even as she militated on behalf of geometric art. Discreet yet present, she was ever curious about others. During her retrospective at the Pompidou Center in 2004, it was striking to note that more of her works are found in private and foreign collections than in public ones.

We are showing oils and works on paper done between 1959 and 1992. This highly varied selection plays on colors and rhythms. Nemours claimed that she liked working with oils—the preparation and execution of her works took a good deal of time, a luxury inherent in oil technique. Only when face to face with a work by Nemours does the beholder realize how truly sensual it is, thanks to brushwork that vibrates beneath rigorous construction.

The catalogue raisonné of the works of Aurélie Nemours is currently being compiled by Serge Lemoine and will be published by Skira.

]]> http://www.galleriesinparis.com/exhibitions/nemours-lahumiere/feed/ 0 http://www.galleriesinparis.com/exhibitions/bodde-kreitner-lahumiere/ http://www.galleriesinparis.com/exhibitions/bodde-kreitner-lahumiere/#comments Sun, 01 Mar 2015 17:34:03 +0000 Galleries http://www.galleriesinparis.com/?p=3221 Aluminum, Colors, and Motors

Nicholas Bodde – Siegfried Kreitner

Paintings – Sculptures

We wanted to exhibit these two artists together because they use the same materials, adopt more or less the same abstraction, and come from the same country.

Nicholas Bodde, an artist we show regularly, was born in Bremen, Germany in 1962 and paints bands of flat color on sheets of aluminum.

Siegfried Kreitner, born in Simmbach am Inn, Germany, in 1967, makes sculptures with neon lights, motors, and brushed aluminum.

Bodde constructs color, using various tools to juxtapose colors in lines and bands, creating surfaces marked by different substances. In his recent works from the Dynamic series he puts the horizon to flight, giving an impression of swift movement—a landscape racing by in a flash—on supports that are rectangular or oval.

His work contrasts with the monochrome effect of Kreitner’s pieces, in which color—in the form of light—crouches inside boxes or totems that seem to breath very, very slowly. Time comes to a halt among what the artist himself describes as “minimal-kinetic” objects. The eyes must come to a rest in order observe the serene rhythm of slowly moving motors.

Although both artists work in aluminum, the swiftness of Bodde’s colors diverges from the unhurried pace of Kreitner’s motors. Yet this contrast binds the two, as do the clashing impressions created by gaudy color and neon glow. Experiencing this show therefore means entertaining two extremes: Should I stay or should I go?

* : excerpt from Treaties on Flat Painting, Jean Dewasne -  Presentation Gérard Denizeau Editions Minerve Paris 2007

It would be a shame to show just one aspect of Moon-Pil Shim’s oeuvre, so we have decided to present an overview. The first time I saw Moon-Pil’s work, I was struck by the linear impact of what looked liked magnetic tape aligned in boxes. Our first collaboration dates back to 2007, during a show in conjunction with the city of Angers on the theme of “white”—his work had evolved into flat zones of white or black streaked with colors etched into the Plexigas with a Stanley knife. During his first exhibition at Galerie Lahumière, his lines acquired an undulating movement and his colors became more marked as orange, green, and red filled his boxes. This new show will feature flat surfaces that slope or shift in the lower register of his pieces, as well as reliefs made of Corian, representing another aspect of his oeuvre, one inspired by his collaboration with architects on “percent for art” projects, which he has been doing since 2008. Light plays a dominant role in his work, whether in boxes where colors cloud the whiteness or in light projections executed as a “percent for art” piece or as a temporary public installation, such as last summer’s In Situ event that showcased French heritage. Moon-Pil claims to be a painter as much as a sculptor, labeling himself a visual artist. The twenty items on show here will offer a fine overview of his oeuvre.

In 1967 Anne and Jean-Claude Lahumière showed a set of drawings by sculptors in their gallery, then located on Rue d’Aguesseau in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. Forty-seven years later, they are repeating the idea while including more contemporary artists. Sculptural drawings are interesting in the way they reveal the foundations of pure form. They serve as a lab for the sculptor’s research—they are where sculptors envisage the scale and medium of volumes. One drawing often leads to another, so that new forms emerge in the process, as can be seen in the work of Jean-Gabriel Coignet.

There are classic preparatory sketches with annotated details, such as those by Etienne Béothy (1897–1961) and Emile Gilioli (1911–1977), yet there are also finished drawings for anticipated projects, such as one by Jean Gorin (1899–1981) for a project executed in Nancy in 1954, featured on the invitation to this show.

Then there is a parallel practice of drawing that enjoys its own status within a sculptor’s oeuvre. Timo Nasseri, for example, constructs his drawings by exploring mathematical formulas inherited from the Arabic world. Nathalie Delasalle, who sculpts in white, uses paper collage to contend with multiple hues of white, directly attacking form in her cut-outs.  Denis Pondruel, meanwhile, reveals the hidden sides and inner architecture of his concrete cubes through axonometric drawings. And André Stempfel sometimes anticipates the movement of his works through sets of drawings, while at other times he hews their forms in paper cut-outs. Finally, drawing is used poetically by Baudin, a surveyor of time who weighs and measures multiple things in his works.

These are some of the many facets of sculptors’ drawings that visitors to the gallery will be able to discover up through April 30th.

Stripes. They can be found on pajamas and umbrellas. But artists’ stripes are a different matter, because they’re not just pretty decoration. Jean Legros’ stripes may have originated in the Beauce region with its dizzying flatness—horizontal. They deploy the ultimate structure of color stripped bare. A kind of tension points toward the birth of sound or image, as though a river of emotion had found its outlet by following the same approach as today’s musicians—simple taut strings, parallel to the background noise filling the universe as it agitates space and time. Legros, as a physicist of color, sought new sources of feeling from these unknown vibrations; like Mozart and Bach, he attempted harmonize colors that are enamored of one another. That’s what a musical round-dance is. A new musical scale, for a new artistry. In memory of Stockhausen (who, with Stimmung, supplied the early notes of his painting) and Barnett Newman (among his final brethren). Thus is Beauty discovered—“the pure light of truth,” say philosophers. So, whenever a gleam of that precious metal was glimpsed, the world had to be told, “like killer whales … in the deep.”