Galleries in Paris » Simon Willems

THE REAL WORLD IS IN BLACK AND WHITE – POLARIS

Galleries — Fri, 17 May 2019 16:24:02 +0000

The title of this exhibition is an extract from an André Bazin critic on the movie “ Le Mystère Picasso” by Henri Georges Clouzot, in which he stresses that this movie filmed in color, is developed in the most part in black and white.

The spectator only recalls the parts kept in color in which Picasso is painting on a glass slab, he does not remember that the movie is mainly in black and white.

The exhibition The Real World is in black and white leads to the questioning of the notion of truth in color. A new found unity between night and day can be perceived.

The exhibition presents pieces from different artists working around black and around white, or using color in a way that unexpectedly, doesn’t give the spectator the immediate impression to be in front of color.

WILLEMS – POLARIS

Galleries — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:17:13 +0000

In this recent series of paintings taking place in the intimate and welcomed gallery Polaris, one of the most today’s interesting British artist : Simon Willems, takes hermit landscapes from art history and re-imagines them as the counter-intuitive backdrop for a programme of corporate team building activities. Like other recent projects the contemporary hermit takes centre-stage here as a metaphor of worldly withdrawal and disengagement. Re-contextualising this ancient motif from painting’s past, Salvator Rosa (1615 – 1673) and Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885) provide appropriate historical fodder for Willems absurd vision and unlikely pairing of realities. Corporate coercion is met by voluntary seclusion and played out accordingly within a game of paintball. The adrenaline of indoor climbing and fancy-dress tug-of-war off offer up the cliché of the self at once erased and subsumed through the cunning of corporate strategy for maximum return.

Partly inspired by philosopher Simon Critchley’s working definition of ‘structured fun’, as it unfolds in his 2002 publication On Humour, the contemporary ramifications of selling out to the team and selling out to the self become a paradoxical point of departure. The aim, it appears, is to dissolve these seeming opposites within an inch of each other, exploring their material dissolution within the painted surface. The ironic title Universal Solutions incorporated scrawled in a child’s hand on a paint-balled wall doubles-up as a company logo; the authentically inauthentic insignia forming a design that Willems presents as a lanyard.

Galerie Polaris – Paris 3

Galleries — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 06:08:39 +0000

Created by Bernard Utudjian, Polaris Gallery is one of the first contemporary art gallery of this area of Le Marais, in Paris. The new space rue des Arquebusiers, ( incredible array of contemporary talent between this street and rue Saint-Claude) was inaugurated in 2009, (The development was confided to Odile Decq, architect of recent Museum of Contemporary Art in Roma ( Macro) . Polaris made the very first solo exhibitions of the main artists represented, and is always open to emerging and newest tendencies in art. The gallery represents : Etienne Armandon, Eric Aupol, Bart Baele, Yto Barrada, Monika Brandmeier, Matthias Bruggmann, Antonio Caballero, Marcos Carrasquer, John Casey, Odile Decq, Simon Faithfull, Vanessa Fanuele, Harald Fernagu, Patrick Guns, Anthony Hernandez, Louis Heilbronn, Khaled Jarrar, Richard Mudariki, Sara Ouhaddou, Nigel Rolfe, Gaétan Vaguelsy, Walter Van Beirendonck, Clémence Van Lunen, Simon Willems.

Désirance – POLARIS

Galleries — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 11:58:05 +0000

Désirance is is a title and a concept where it is requested to look at art and only art.

The exhibition presents works by Bart Baele, Yto Barrada, John Casey, Stéphane Couturier, Bouchra Khalili, Speedy Graphito, Laure Tixier, and Patrick Guns.