ART CITIES:Paris-Guy Yanai
Guy Yanai’s paintings are characterized by bold colors, simplified shapes, and a shallow depth of field. He often chooses everyday objects and spaces as his subjects, flattening and abstracting them in a way that seems removed and objective. Yanai has cited numerous sources of inspiration (from old, modern, and contemporary masters to photography, television, paintings, and advertisements) and his simplified representations may serve as a way to condense and organize the multitude of data we receive in reference to any person, place, or thing into concise representations with tight compositions.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Praz-Delavallade Gallery Archive
Guy Yanai’s second solo exhibition with Praz-Delavallade Gallery “The Conformist”, follows “Barbarian In The Garden” (4/11-22/12/17) his debut with the gallery in Los Angeles. The title of the exhibition was decided by Yanai for a multitude of reasons. The first resulted out of a minor argument with his French girlfriend who called him a conformist. Then he remembered Moravia’s novel “The Conformist” (1951) that portrays whith details the life of Marcello Clerici, who divided between an obsessive need to conform to the rules and his inner ethical conscience and deeds, from his childhood in the home of wealthy bourgeois Romans, as a member of the Italian secret police during the fascist Mussolini regime who seems to have everything under control to his death in a random air raid at the end of World War II. In 1970 Bernardo Bertolucci made a film based on the novel, τhe film is a character study of the kind of person who willingly “conforms” to the ideological fashions of his day Today Moravia’s novel illustrates the rise in populist governments in Europe and the U.S.A. today and the necessity to conform in order to be a “good” citizen of one’s country. Furthermore, the title of the exhibition becomes a reflection on todays art world and the lifestyle of contemporary artists: while Jean Genet slept in tents with Palestinians in Jordan for two years, most artists today travel and sleep in comfortable hotels. The three main large works of the exhibition (all 2019) are each the same size and represent completely different cognitive experiences, “The Dining Room” is a domestic space from artist’s home, “Standard West Hollywood” represents the interior of the hotel where Yanai stayed during his previous exhibition with Praz-Delavallade Los Angeles, and “Normandie” is of the village of Camembert in Normandy, a place where the artist has never been. Rendered in a pixelated appearance, a technique that is a blend of impasto oil painting and almost digital aesthetic, these images are depicting a wide range of subjects ranging from solitary objects or plants to complex landscapes or interior paintings. Aesthetically continuing onto each other and creating a coherent body of work, the images are intentionally recognizable and commonplace. With a loose approach to capturing form, detail or perspective, it’s the vibrant color choices and distinctive brushstrokes that capture or create the ambiance around these subjects and spaces.
Info: Praz-Delavallade Gallery, 5 rue des Haudriettes, Paris, Duration: 30/3-25/5/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.praz-delavallade.com
