FLORIAN & MICHAEL QUISTREBERT

While Florian and Michael Quistrebert’s formal investigations often remind one of abstract painters, particularly the op-art masters for their work on geometry, volume, and reflections, their most recent works cultivate a certain ambiguity, alluding towards the sacred, the occult, the fantastic, and science fiction.

For the upcoming exhibition at Crèvecœur, a series of paintings inspired by Brian De Palma’s 1975 film Phantom of the Paradise will be unveiled. Drawing its inspiration from Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, this cult rock opera depicts the tragic story of Winslow Leach, a talented composer disfigured and transformed into an unhappy phantom by the malevolent Swann, a music producer and owner of the Paradise club. The film’s visual universe, with its extraordinary sets and unique costumes – from the flashing cables and synthesizers of Winslow’s studio-cave to his unsettling mask, metallic teeth, and adorned body – resonates with the artistic explorations of the Quistrebert brothers.