GROUP EXHIBITION

Some of the works in this show of major artists express a pure harmony. This is true of DonBrown’s bronze Eriko (2021), presented for the first time at Almine Rech, which representsa girl huddled on the floor, perched on a base of the same deep black. At first glance, shecould seem to be a continuation of ancient sculpture or the Roman neoclassicism ofCanova’s Cupid and Psyche. However, her clothing–a leotard–clearly anchors her in thecurrent era. Her fragility and delicacy, emphasised by the oversized height of the base, makeher a perfect allegory. In his quest for grace and the sublime, Don Brown is driven by asense of detail and extreme refinement, where any idealisation has disappeared.

Tangible harmony is also conveyed by the new work of British artist Annie Morris, whoseartistic practice also includes painting, drawing, and tapestry. She studied under GiuseppePenone at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and shows a piece from Stacks, her symbolicseries of towers made of colored spheres. In a fragile equilibrium, sculpted of plaster andsand, these mineral balls covered with pure pigments–particularly cadmium red,ultramarine blue, and emerald green – are stacked on a concrete base of similar verticality.The piece blends figuration and abstraction, collective and personal experience.

Quite different from this harmony but with a similar desire to grasp fragility, the oilpainting Personnage (1969) and the multicoloured painted sculpture Head (1975) by KarelAppel, cofounder of the CoBrA movement in 1948, fluctuate between the expressionisticgrotesque and popular humor, between animality and a children’s drawing. Theirresemblance to unbridled but meticulous art brut brings them into the territory of theunconscious.

Cheek Fabric (Peach), a new piece from Sylvie Fleury’s painting series Eye Shadows, showsthe fascination that cosmetics and their palette of colours exert over the Swiss artist and isalso related to monochrome painting and the tondo. With the gentle yet sharp irony thatcharacterises her polymorphic work, which also expresses an exceptional feministintelligence, this UFO-style painting with its sparkly pigments goes beyondpost-Duchampian practice. The piece questions the masculine/feminine paradigm as well asthe vanity of the world and the way that the art world is manufactured. Sylvie Fleury hascreated a figurative work representing a make-up item that is also a monochrome painting.

Many of the artworks in Dialogues radiate sensuality. It is evident in the works of SylvieFleury and Don Brown, and is influenced by primitivism in the work of Cuban artistAgustín Cárdenas, producing a disturbing strangeness. His two black bronzes, La Fiancée ducheval (1984), with its totem-like appearance, and the anthropomorphic Bouba (1974), arealso connected to modernist sculpture bordering on abstraction, recalling Arp or Moore.Agustín Cárdenas is also known for having produced many direct carvings of Carraramarble in a more classical tradition.

An important figure of postmodernism and new German painting, Günther Förg createdabstract art that never reproduced the same style twice or repeated the same decisions. Hewas fascinated by the ability of painting to manifest itself in its physicality, materiality, andchromatic tones, to construct its own architectural space. His work gives rise to questions ofutopia, our relationship to nature, the passing or suspension of time. These are clear signs ofmodernity, from Mondrian to de Kooning, from the façades of Bauhaus buildings to CyTwombly or the grid motif. In this Gitterbilder from 2002, Förg’s unique gesture, thecovering in strata of blues and yellows and the particular texture that the wood mediumprovides, summon sensuality and restraint.

The pop geographies of César and Mimmo Rotella (both part of the Nouveau Réalisme movement) are in immediate dialogue with each other. The gallery presents works from theItalian artist’s final years, the 2000s. Much earlier, in 1953, Mimmo Rotella discovered thatadvertising posters could serve as material for his artworks. Famous for his ‘doublesdécollages,’ which were first produced in the streets of Rome and then in his studio, wherehe mounted them on canvas, he worked using movie posters, such as the famous image ofMarilyn Monroe from The Seven-Year Itch, an Elvis Presley movie, or MartinScorsese[KA1] ‘s Gangs of New York, adding paint and pieces of monochromatic paper. Heestablished a new language of the street that was poetic with abstract elements, and renewedthe possibilities of what a painting could be.

We see the same movement from urban daily life into the studio in one of César’s finalcompressions, Compression Monaco (bleue), a masterful series in his oeuvre. The Frenchartist compressed many different objects, including race cars, sheet metal from advertisingsigns, papers, and jewellery. The prince of the scrapyard took on the challenge of pitcherswith enamel in 1994, in a rare artwork that approaches bas-relief.

Carlos Jacanamijoy’s abstract, atmospheric, colourful, lush landscapes are inspired by nature–specifically by the jungles of Colombia. Borrowing from American colour field painting,the Colombian artist’s two new large-scale paintings, Caminos de agua and Caminos de luz,are his first to be shown at Almine Rech. Not completely abstract but almost landscapes,these paintings create a space of hypnotic depth that is spiritual and intense, hinting at thememory of nature as a perceptive experience and an imaginary world of tales with afascinating universality.

Press release courtesy Almine Rech. Text: Charles Barachon.