Press - ARTFORUM international - SPOTLIGHT
“NARRATIVE FIGURATION 60s – 70s”, curated by Richard Frerejean Taittinger in collaboration with Yoyo Maeght, is the new historical exhibition at RICHARD TAITTINGER GALLERY. In order to celebrate RTG's 6th anniversary, we are honored to organize the very first comprehensive US exhibition on the Paris-based movement Narrative Figuration.
Richard Taittinger Gallery. On view at 154 Ludlow St until May 16th, 2021, “NARRATIVE FIGURATION 60s – 70s” features the work of nine prominent artists from the École de Paris in the 1960s – 1970s.
Valerio Adami (Italian b. 1935) Eduardo Arroyo (Spanish 1937-2018) Erró (Icelandic b. 1932) Gérard Fromanger (French b. 1939) Jacques Monory (French 1924-2018) Bernard Rancillac (French b. 1931) Peter Saul ( American b. 1934) Hervé Télémaque (Haitian b. 1937) Cybèle Varela (Brazilian b. 1943)
In June of 1964, the center of the art world changed from Paris to New York when young American artist Robert Rauschenberg won the Grand Prix of International Painting at the 32nd Venice Biennale, solidifying American soft power through the elevated positioning of American Pop art. A reply came from Paris in July 1964, when French art critic Gérald Gassiot-Talabot together with young artists Hervé Télémaque and Bernard Rancillac organized the groundbreaking exhibition at Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris entitled Mythologies Quotidiennes . This group exhibition of 34 artists (including Adami, Arroyo, Monory, Rancillac, Saul, and Télémaque) served as the de facto manifesto of the Narrative Figuration movement, which ended in the late 1970s when the artists decided to continue their solo careers.
In today's context, these artists are gaining the momentum and all they deserve from international museums. Following Peter Saul's retrospective at the New Museum in New York in 2020, several of them are preparing for their upcoming retrospectives:
Hervé Télémaque at the Serpentine in London in Fall 2021, Erró at the Reykjavík Art Museum in Iceland in January 2022, Cybèle Varela at the Museum of Contemporary Art in São Paolo in 2022.
Furthermore, this exhibition seeks to pay tribute to Cybèle Varela as the last living woman involved in Narrative Figuration, who has recently signed representation with the RICHARD TAITTINGER GALLERY.
NARRATIVE FIGURATION 60s – 70s is on view at 154 Ludlow Street through May 16th.
View of NARRATIVE FIGURATION 60s – 70s , 2021. From left: Hervé Télémaque, Contamination Verte , 1970, acrylic on canvas, 23 5/8 × 23 5/8". Bernard Rancillac, Tragic End of an Apostle of Apartheid , 1966, acrylic on canvas, 28 3/4 × 36 1/4". Bernard Rancillac, James Brown piece No. 2 , 1974, oil on canvas, 39 3/8 × 28 3/4".
blupro