TEMPLON, Paris-Bruxelles-New York
François Rouan , Etats-Unis
François Rouan, Ange de l’histoire #7, 2023, Photographie argentique, peinture, dessins, 74 × 61 cm — 29 1/4 × 24 in. Unique, Photographie : Tanguy Beurdeley Courtesy TEMPLON, Paris-Bruxelles-New York
French artist François Rouan, for his braided canvases, presents for his latest exhibition at Galerie Templon is latest “photographic-tableaux”, a group of forty previously unseen pieces created since 2020.
Rouan has been spending over 40 years working on deconstructing the notion of the painting using a new process which became his signature: pictorial braiding. In the late 1980s, he started using photography, a medium he has constantly explored and subverted for the last 25 years alongside his work as a painter.
The new exhibition features a series of small format photographic artworks. Fruit of his inexhaustible impulse to experiment and delve into the elusive medium of photography, these reworked images centre on a resolutely pared-back palette. The understated black and white landscape occasionally embraces hints of coral or salmon. The apparent simplicity of the colour range opens the door wide to some of the metaphysical questions that obsesses the artist: the body and the mystery of the world’s origins. “I’m interested in the idea of building a framework that refers to the female body,” explains François Rouan.
Creating these photographic pieces is a complex, tedious process: he lets his models guide the staging phase before playing with techniques such as multiple exposures and photographic braiding, which he then covers with hatching, dots, tracery or tiny commas. The result is dynamic image, swinging between abstraction and figuration. Rouan’s works are strikingly perceptive, resonating with current concerns such as our relationship to images, the other side of the surface, and the role of art in reconstructing a fragmented material and mental world.
The exhibition will be marked by the publication of catalogue in May 2024 featuring a text by Agnès Fabre.
Solo show of François Rouan
From April 30th to July 26th, 2024.
The gallery
Daniel Templon founded the gallery in 1966 in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district. The gallery quickly moved to Le Marais in 1972. Initially, the gallery gained recognition for its program focusing on conceptual and minimal art. Many artists, now part of art history, exhibited within the gallery's walls.
Today, the gallery represents around thirty international artists. Its program aims to promote dialogue between different generations: established artists of "classic" contemporary art, mid-career international artists, and emerging young artists' experiences.
The gallery actively collaborates with museums and institutions to develop exhibitions and publications. It maintains a significant policy of artwork production and regularly publishes catalogs on its exhibitions. The gallery has three exhibition spaces: two in Paris and one gallery in Brussels.
Gallery artists
Franz Ackermann, Valerio Adami, Jean-Michel Alberola, He An, Arman, Omar Ba, Ben, Abdelkader Benchamma, Norbert Bisky, Anthony Caro, James Casebere, Francesco Clemente, Philippe Cognée, Will Cotton, Gregory Crewdson, Daniel Dezeuze, Alioune Diagne, Jim Dine, Atul Dodiya, Anju Dodiya, Ed & Nancy Kienholz, Jan Fabre, Gérard Garouste, Orsten Groom, Oda Jaune,Jitish Kallat, Clay Ketter, Robin Kid, David Lachapelle, Ulrich Lamsfuss Léonard Martin, Jonathan Meese, Michael Ray Charles, Iván Navarro, Prune Nourry, Jules Olitski, Philip Pearlstein, Pierre Et Gilles, Antoine Roegiers, François Rouan, Julião Sarmento, George Segal, Sudarshan Shetty, Chiharu Shiota, Jan Van Imschoot, Claude Viallat, Jeanne Vicerial, Kehinde Wiley, René Wirths, Billie Zangewa
Galerie sélectionnée par Gaëlle Choisne
