TOPOR N’EST PAS MORT – BARRAULT

Galleries — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 12:09:05 +0000

Roland Topor was an insatiable creator. He defined himself as “a simple paper worker”, but his work is impressive and protean: drawings, novels, films, plays, and television programs. His carnivalesque mind, his cruel derision, his thundering laughter have infused into us.
His first drawing was published in the journal “Bizarre” in 1958, and his first anthology of drawings in 1960 was entitled “Les Masochistes”.
In 1962, Roland Topor goes on having fun and fascinating us. He founds the group “Panique” with his friends Fernando Arrabal and Alejandro Jodorowsky.
“Panique” pays homage to Pan, the god of love and fornication, of humor and confusion. “Panique” was born as a reaction to the dogmatism of André Breton, who liked neither rock, nor science fiction, nor pornography.
In 1964, his book “Le locataire chimérique” was published. It will be adapted for the cinema a few years later by Roman Polanski. And his animated film “La Planète Sauvage” made with René Laloux, was awarded the special jury award at the 1973 Cannes film festival.

From the beginning of the seventies on, Topor has had steady exhibitions in galleries. Today he is thought as one of the most important drawers of the twentieth century.

During an interview with Eddy Devolder in 1994, Roland Topor said, “ I laugh about what is tragic, reality gives me asthma. I am like a schoolboy who writes and draws, it is among human means to mess up paper. I like art, because it is a way to evacuate culpability and just keep pleasure.”

This exhibition is not homage, strictly speaking. The guest artists have not made new works for the occasion. It has only been a question of selecting drawings, paintings and films, by elective affinities, and finding connivances.

Topor explained he drew or wrote in order to find allies. This is only the project of this exhibition: to find, in these allies, the mind of Topor.

This exhibition is meant to be generous, rich and diverse, in his image, the opportunity to discover the works of 21 artists, as well as a set of drawings by Roland Topor.

TOPOR – BARRAULT

Galleries — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 13:39:33 +0000

An exhibition of some of Roland Topor’s works (with a nod to Gébé, the illustrator) in
Gallery Anne Barrault, from October 18h to November 29th,, 2014
“Topor is probably the greatest graphic mind of the twentieth century.” Seymour Chwast, the co-founder of Push Pin Studios.
The exhibition curated by Alexandre Devaux at Anne Barrault Gallery presents a set of works by Roland Topor done at different periods and with several techniques. Ink drawings, crayon ones, linographs, lithographs, drawings painted with a spray or a brush, photographs called “photomorphoses” will enable the visitors to grasp the range of this artist’s graphic and polytechnic genius, who was an avant-garde all by himself.
Roland Topor was born in 1938 and died in 1997, in Paris tenth district. His work is rich and diverse and protean. An illustrator, a writer, a multitalented artist, he was published in French and foreign papers : Bizarre, Hara-Kiri, Elle, The New York Times, Le Canard enchaîné, Libération, Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and so on. He wrote books, he illustrated the works of more than a hundred writers, among them Boris Vian, Marcel Aymé, Félix Fénéon, Tolstoï, Georges Sand, Pierre Benoît… He conceived the scenery and dresses of several plays and operas for Liget, Penderecki, Savary, and others. He wrote film scenarios, plays, songs, tales, novels, and short stories. He acted in William Klein’s, Raoul Ruiz’s, Volker Schlöndorff’s films. He made animated cartoon films such as Fantastic Planet. He took part in many radio and television creations. Amongothers, he is the author of the programme for children Téléchat, and the co-author of Merci Bernard and Palace. The creator of Panic Movement with Fernando Arrabal, Jacques Sternberg and Alejandro Jodorowsky, Topor had links with several movements and “artist families”, such as Cobra, the Situationist International and Flexus. His drawings and paintings have been shown many times and are owned by several private and institutional collections, among them: Pompidou Centre, Strasbourg museums, the Stedelijk Museum, Warsaw Fine Arts museum, Munich Stadtmuseum, and others in Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, the United States…

Galleries in Paris » Roland Topor

TOPOR N’EST PAS MORT – BARRAULT

TOPOR – BARRAULT