Figuration is the essential motivation of artists in the 1980s. Like the German Fauves or the Italian Trans-avant-garde, the artists of Figuration Libre: Alberola, Blais, Blanchard, Boisrond, Combas, Di Rosa, tackle themes related to comics, graffiti, and street slogans in an ironic and deliberately naive fable. Until January 15, 201, the Galerie des Ponchettes will host the collections of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMAC) in Nice.
Beyond Figuration Libre, the exhibition will feature works by Denis Castellas, Luciano Castelli, Keith Haring, Antonio Recalcati, Gérald Thupinier, Vladimir Vélickovic… exploring the theme of the figure in the MAMAC collections.
The 80s: Movements and Individualities
In the early 1980s, France searched among its artists for the equivalent of the new German Fauves and the Italian trans-avant-garde painters. The era was one of renewed figurative painting. It is in this context that “Figuration Libre” developed, so named by Ben and exhibited by critic Bernard Lamarche-Vadel in 1981 in “Finir en beauté.” It temporarily grouped several young artists, Jean-Michel Alberola, Jean-Charles Blais, Rémi Blanchard, François Boisrond, Robert Combas, Hervé Di Rosa, artists who then claimed total spontaneity of expression associated with formal naivety and a painting of sensation, in opposition to any historical or artistic heritage.
Borrowing their iconography and composition from comics, the imagination of children’s press, or even the aesthetics of the media and the gadgetization of the modern world, their works reflected, through a personal expression of the everyday, immediacy, a certain urban culture.
The work of Jean-Michel Alberola first built around large figurative paintings and pastels before mixing citations, photographs, films, and reflections on art problems, La nuit d’Aziyadée, 1980-1981.
Jean-Charles Blais painted large characters on found materials, often on the reverse side of posters, characters that gradually invaded the entire free surface, conforming to the shape of their contours and thus eliminating any possibility of narration, El tiger del papel, 1982.
Rémi Blanchard, with a raw and wild aspect, opted for a particular direction of animal representation, an expressiveness that passed both by the subject and by the execution, Self-portrait, 1982.
François Boisrond divides his paintings into a series of juxtaposed or superposed planes, reflecting a daily routine of biographical events defined by their repetition: work, couple, holidays, travels, Untitled, 1982.
Robert Combas works from the stereotype; his characters are the commonplaces of the popular imagination, folklore, added to often fanciful calligraphy claiming the importance of these cultural groups, Ketty, 1982.
The text is also essential for Hervé Di Rosa, participating in the creation of a fictional universe of characters in which the public can project itself, The return of J.C Quiquette, 1982.
Figuration Libre is close by its borrowings from the forms of “subcultures” of American graffiti, in which Keith Haring evolved. A striking figure of the New York School of the 80s, he developed a clean and stylized treatment of images, silhouettes of small characters or lively and colorful animals that would become the visual logo reference of this period Untitled no. 2557, 1986.
List of exhibited works
Jean-Michel Alberola (born in Saïda, Algeria in 1953)
La nuit d’Aziyadée
September 1980 – January 1981
Oil on canvas and wash on paper
Canvas: 232×400 cm
Wash: 10.5×16 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice, inv. : 997.0.27
Jean-Charles Blais (born in Nantes in 1956)
El Tiger de papel – 1982
Mixed media on poster paper
285 x 230 x 5 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice
photo Muriel Anssens – City of Nice © Adagp, Paris, 2011
Rémi Blanchard (1958, Nantes – 1993, Paris)
Self-portrait – February 1982
Oil on free canvas
240×307 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice, inv. : 997.0.30
François Boisrond (born in Paris in 1959)
Untitled – February 1982
Acrylic and stickers on free canvas
307×240 cm
Each element: 114 x 199 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice, inv. 997.0.31
Denis Castellas (born in 1951 in Marseille)
Untitled – 2006
Oil on canvas
200×180 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice, inv. : 2007.4.1
Luciano Castelli
Nötigung II – 1982
Oil on canvas
Diptych: 290 x 200 cm and 290 x 150 cm
Private Collection
On deposit at MAMAC, Nice, inv. D. 006.2.1
Robert Combas (born in 1957 in Lyon)
Ketty February – 1982
Acrylic on free canvas
170×112 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice, inv. : 997.0.76
Hervé Di Rosa (born in Sète in 1959)
The return of J.C. Quiquette February 1982
Acrylic on cardboard
150×150 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice, inv. : 997.0.36
Keith Haring (1958, Kutztown, USA – 1990, New York, USA)
Untitled (no. 2557) 1986
Acrylic and oil on canvas
240×240 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice, inv. : 987.9.1
Patrick Lanneau (born in Tours in 1951)
Untitled 1982
Oil on canvas
211×360 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice, inv. 997.0.44
Jean-Luc Poivret (born in Bayeux in 1950)
Avion 82 1982
Coated cotton and glossy lacquer
200×240 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice, inv. : 997.0.69
Antonio Recalcati (born in Bresso, Italy, in 1938)
Untitled 1983
Oil on linen canvas
140 x 220 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice, inv.2005.5.1, purchase with the support of the FRAM
Gérald Thupinier (Born in 1950 in Moulins)
Nietsche Opera 1981
Oil on canvas
200 x 250 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice, inv. : 997.0.17
Vladimir Vélickovic (born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1935)
Untitled n.d.
Oil on canvas
145 x 145 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice, inv. 2010.1.92, Donation K. Nahoul
Gregory Forstner (born in Douala, Cameroon, in 1975)
The Girl in the Wind 2005
Oil on canvas
240 x 190 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice, inv. : 2006.3.1
Purchase with the support of the FRAM
Ben (born in Naples in 1935)
There is too much art 1985
Painted wood
123 x 50 x 17 cm
MAMAC Collection, Nice, inv. : 998.0.69
