ART CITIES:Paris-Openings 28 Jan. 2017

Didier Mencoboni in his solo exhibition “Episode XII” at Galerie Eric Dupont presents a selection of paintings from the series “…Etc…”. Since the last exhibition that presented paintings of this series in 2011, the canvasses have kept on accumulating in the studio. Selected by the gallerist amongst the last 2.400 paintings, they testify of the inexorable trajectory of the series in parallel to the other fields experimented by Didier Mencoboni such as drawing, installation, photography. At the entrance, an “…Etc…” light drawing shaped in a neon light presents the exhibition, despite its annunciation feature, the title is an autonomous artwork, which relates to the conceptuality of the series. For more than 3 years, Generation…Etc… has been generating new digital works methodically and on a daily basis on the website http://generationetc.com/. They stem from real paintings of the series. Info: Galerie Eric Dupont, 138 rue du Temple, Paris, Duration: 28/1-2/2/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.eric-dupont.com

The works of the exhibition by Jimmie Durham Jone Kvie at Galerie Michel Rein are the result of their residency at CIRVA in Marseille in October 2016, there the artists worked with glass. As Jimmie Durham  says “For or hundreds of years physical material, matter, was divided into three categories: solid, liquid and gas. Late in the 20th century glass was added as a fourth category. Liquid, solid, gas and glass, because scientists needed the clarity. Glass is never really solid, it is in a state of flow that does not flow in our universe. One scientist described it as flowing more slowly than the universe operates”. Artist, performer, poet, essayist, and activist Jimmie Durham is one of the most compelling, inventive, and multifaceted artists working internationally today. Combining natural elements with manufactured objects, much of it discarded or found and reanimated by the artist, the works question ingrained hierarchies of materials and mediums as well as the modernist preoccupation with originality and artistic heroicism. In earlier sculptural projects, Jone Kvie has examined natural phenomena in its many forms, from mineral formations found on earth to meteors and star clusters found in the vast expanse of the universe. Through the artist’s process of material translation, Kvie’s works gain an ambiguous presence in time and space, often evoking the unknown, hinting at what we yet do not know. Any relationship to their source material, be it the natural sciences, popular culture, or art history, remains inconclusive. Info: Galerie Michel Rein, 42 rue de Turenne, Paris, Duration: 28/1-25/2/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, http://michelrein.com