Outside de walls “Humor and derision”, Saint Raphaël

La-bouillabaisse des chefs pour le banquet barOque (2)

In partnership with the Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of Saint-Raphaël, and echoing the gloomy climate that reigns in the world and does not spare culture, the Regards de Provence Museum honors the theme of "Humour & Derision" through some sixty drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures from his foundation and those of artists and individuals. This exhibition runs from February 18 to May 14, 2022, at the Salle Raphaël, at the Georges Ginesta Cultural Center, Place Gabriel Peri. Free admission: Open Tuesday to Saturday from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

This exhibition is a poetic, humorous, sometimes absurd journey, juxtaposing 18 artists, French, Spanish and Dutch from the 20th century, whose works are engaging – both strong and explosive. It is a mixture of realistic and surreal, poetic and utopian, cheerful and humorous aesthetics, wandering from caricature to humorous drawing, from photography to painting, the only link being the smile.

Pilar Albajar and Antonio Altarriba, Roger Blachon, Jeane Derome, Bernard De Tournadre, Luc Dubost, Joan Fontcuberta, Gilbert Garcin, Pierre Henry, Teun Hocks, René Maltête, François Mezzapelle, Claire and Philippe Ordioni, Christian Ramade, Olivier Rebufa, Nicolas Rubinstein , Ben Vautier, Michel Zevort constitute the palette of humanist artists.

It is a mixture of realistic and surreal, poetic and utopian, cheerful and humorous aesthetics, wandering from caricature to humorous drawing, from photography to painting, the only link being the smile. Photography makes it possible to unwittingly capture amusing, incongruous images taken on the spot. Technology allows others to make montages where the artist and a fictional setting mingle. Still others create dreamlike and phantasmagorical works, in which metaphorical stagings are conceived.

Some works build puns (Ben), parodic magic (Garcin), comics of gestures (Blachon), comics of mores (Fontcuberta), comics of situations (Maltete, de Tournade, Rebufa), comics of character (Zevort), or rehearsal comedy (Ramade). This mosaic of humor and derision is optimistic and emblematic of the comical spirit that governs the works of these artists.

These images convey a comedy; they distract us, they only seek to arouse questioning. This multiplied ambivalence always touches spectators young and old intimately because they always find there in some way an echo of their lives.

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