ART CITIES:Paris-Openings

In “Abstracts”, her new solo exhibition, Fiona Rae  shows a new collection of canvas paintings and more intimate works on paper, her “Abstracts” in line with her recent formal research. Her preliminary work in gouache and watercolor, less well known and more rarely exhibited, constitutes a set of ideas from which she creates her paintings and thus allows us to catch sight of their development. The artist has chosen to present these two practices in a fixing that takes into account their mutual contributions and correspondences. The set of works presented is in a certain continuity with the series of “Figures”, which she began in 2014 in a grayscale palette. In 2017, the artist departed from these grays, completely eliminating black and its derivatives, in favor of pastel colors that tended toward artificial, magical hues. Her work on chromatic gradation became the backdrop for a theatrical choreography of shapes, pictorial gestures, and graphic signs, that were on the edge of the figurative world. All of Fiona Rae’s pictorial efforts reside precisely in this subtle paradox: the abstraction must bring forth—then conceal—a universe of possible imagery, of familiar figures. The resulting works were ethereal, graceful landscapes, with arabesques, brushstrokes, arrows, vaporous and chimeric movements, that played the role of actors in a specific game, that of the painting. Info: Gallerie Nathalie Obadia, 18 rue du Bourg-Tibourg, Paris, Duration: 10/1-7/3/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.nathalieobadia.com

For this new exhibition, “On the water’s edge”, James Casebere once again displays his mastery of staged photography with an original series that accurately lays bare major contemporary questions around climate change and the threat of environmental disaster. In 2016, in response to the alarming rise of populism in society, Casebere presented an exhibition in homage to Luis Barragán: an architectural ensemble paying tribute to a sense of spirituality. With this new work, On the Water’s Edge, he sets his sights on the future with a series of novel hybrid structures, skilfully combining public spaces and private sanctuaries in coastal regions as he adopts a critical yet optimistic approach to the current disasters caused by rising sea levels. For the new show, the artist chose not to work with existing structures but to create new composite ensembles from scratch, their unfinished appearance turning them into sanctuaries of peace where every refugee can find refuge. Each photograph is the fruit of a painstaking working process in the studio: he starts by building scale models inspired by a plethora of architectural forms and finishes by designing complex lighting, coloring and image production inspired by his personal memories. Info: Galerie Templon, 30 rue Beaubourg, Paris, Duration: 11/1-7/3/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-19:00, www.templon.com

“New Day”, John Phillip Abbott’s solo exhibition presents a body of works carried out since 2012 and his most recent productions. Since his debut, John Phillip Abbott explores the relationship between text and image, blurring the boundary between both. Words, names or short sentences organize his compositions with a grid-like structure and function as images rather than mere concepts. Complex and visually intense, his linguistic structures challenge legibility and invite the viewer to enter an interstitial zone, between “reading” and “seeing”. John Phillip Abbott’s creative process starts with a memory, crystallized in words. After the lexical content (is determined and stabilized, comes the act of painting, which consists in spelling out words or short sentences, through a peculiar calligraphic vocabulary composed of geometric shapes. These shapes, interweaving with words’ usual configuration, are carefully chosen as part of formal solutions to the painterly problems and situations he encounters. With this balancing between “reading” and “seeing”, Abbott’s paintings enclose a paradox. On the one hand, we are confronted with the rational approach of a formal painterly research (dictated by geometry, logic or necessity). On the other hand, there is always a sentimental backstory determining the actual choice of words and formal decisions. All this turns Abbott’s paintings into something similar to Proust’s madeleine or a time-travel machine, destined to resurrect the past. Info: Xippas Gallery, 108 rue Vieille du Temple, Paris, France, Duration: 11/1-15/2/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-13:00 & 14:00-19:00, Sat 10:00-19:00, www.xippas.com

Peter Saul continues today with his ever-constant exploration of the most pressing issues of the world and art, making him one of the most influential painters for young artists. Saul’s work expresses the quintessence of American art. Thousands of kilometres from the epicentre of Pop Art, a movement he affirms he does not belong to, while sharing its themes, Saul offers a more critical dimension, questioning both consumerist and imperialist models. Upon his return to the United States in 1964 he moved to California, the home of ‘Funk’ art, with which his pictorial, pop, and surrealist practice found an echo. Pop in a different vein, dazzling Funk, his art is a new way of making historical painting with the colors and clashes of today, just as his way of rewriting the masterpieces of painting prefigures “Bad Painting” and its success in the 1980s. He has also been consistently attentive to world chaos. The Vietnam War, the struggles for civil rights, American presidents (from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump), ecology, junk food and cigarettes are among the powerful themes he has addressed in his work. Info: Almine Rech Gallery, 64 Rue de Turenne, Paris, Duration : 18/1-29/2/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.alminerech.com

Sally Saul’s solo exhibition “Hideout” is on show at Almine Rech Gallery. Sally Saul grew up in Ithaca, a small city in central New York State, where her father was a professor of local government at Cornell University. She attended college at Boulder, Colorado and continued her education at San Francisco State University and was awarded a master’s degree, with honors, in American Literature, in 1973. That year Sally met Peter Saul, they were married in 1975 and are together today, 45 years later. In 1981, the couple moved to Austin, Texas, where Peter had obtained a teaching position at the university. There was a large room on the ground floor of the art building devoted to ceramics. Sally took note, went in, got to know the professor Janet Kastner and proceeded to become a ceramic sculptor. She was grateful for the opportunity to take classes at the university, for the support offered, and for the freedom to express herself visually. Sally’s background in literature gives her a deep and original feel for a very wide range of subjects, from animals she is particularly fond of, owls and other birds to more conceptual subjects, confinement and gender. Info: Almine Rech Gallery, 64 Rue de Turenne, Paris, Duration : 18/1-29/2/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.alminerech.com