ART CITIES:Paris-Francesco Clemente
Francesco Clemente explores individual identity, and the various means for its construction by constantly questioning the idea of a singular self. Clemente’s post-modern approach undermines earlier notions of a “unified ego” for individual human beings through artistic techniques such as distorting the faces and figures of individuals, as well as employing the literary techniques of allusion and allegory.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galerie Daniel Templon Archive
After 20 years Paris hosts a solo exhibition by Francesco Clemente, “Pirate Heart” on presentation at Galerie Templon is presenting a series of works that explore the theme of love. The exhibition features 36 small format paintings and two frescos. In a warm and sensual palette of colours, women, men, animals and wild geometric shapes intermingle to form a melody that examines the power of love, its meaning, its gender, its sensual explosion. The paintings are rhythmed by Enrique Juncosa’s poems, published in the exhibition catalogue. Now joyful, now tragic, but always enigmatic and erotic, the works will be shown alongside a monumental plaster sculpture simply entitled Love. Francesco Clemente was born in 1952 in Naples. After writing poetry and painting as a child, he went to Rome to study Architecture at the Università degli Studi di Roma, La Sapienza, in 1970. Leaving school before completing the program, he focused instead on art. Although he came of age when Arte Povera and Conceptual Art were in vogue, Clemente concentrated on representation in works on paper. After meeting Alighiero e Boetti in Rome in 1972, Clemente traveled with the artist in Afghanistan. In 1973, Clemente first visited India, a country to which he would return again and again, often summering there. He continued making drawings and other works on paper in the ‘70s, pursuing what would become his signature subjects: the human form, particularly women’s bodies, his own image, sexuality, myth and spirituality non-Western symbols; and dreamlike visions. Clemente’s participation in the 1980 Venice Biennale brought him international attention. He rapidly became seen as one of the leaders of the “return to figuration,” dubbed the Transavanguardia in Italy and Neo-Expressionism in the United States. In 1981–82, Clemente created his first large oils, a series of 12 paintings titled “The Fourteen Stations”. He collaborated with Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat on a group of works. In the 1990s, he added Jamaica to his list of favorite spots and began working in a studio in New Mexico. He used a wax fresco method known as cera punica around this time. Among Clemente’s less traditional undertakings have been murals for the now-demolished Palladium nightclub in New York (1985) and a mural and lampshades for New York’s Hudson hotel, which opened in 2000.
Info: Galerie Daniel Templon, 30 rue Beaubourg, Paris, Duration: 5/11-23/12/16, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 10:00-19:00, www.danieltemplon.com
