Été pourri peinture fraîche at FRAC Champagne-Ardenne

Artists: Franz Ackermann, Corentin Canesson, Melissa Dubbin, Aaron S. Davidson, Jennifer Douzenel, Mar García Albert, Hippolyte Hentgen, Robert Malaval, Nicolas Momein, François Petit, Laure Prouvost, Clément Rodzielski, Lilli Thiessen, Julia Wachtel, Lois Weinberger

Exhibition title: Été pourri peinture fraîche

Curated by: Marie Griffay

Venue: FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France

Date: May 17 – September 15, 2019

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and FRAC Champagne-Ardenne

The FRAC Champagne-Ardenne collection includes a group of remarkable paintings that shed light on high-quality individual practices without going back over the whole history of the medium. “Été pourri peinture fraîche” (Rotten Summer, Wet Paint) is the title of a series of drawings by Robert Malaval (from the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne Collection), whose work endlessly mixed rock, pop esthetic, the end of the world, the festive and the tragic, thus playing a significant part in opening up art practices generally. Painting, sculpture, performance, and music were entwined in Malaval’s art; his output has inspired many other artists since. The show is a discreet homage to this all-in outré commitment, bringing together artists whose own approaches throw off the burden of a history of painting that goes back millennia and embrace the freedom to reinvent and redirect the medium and imagine new rules.

Julia Wachtel, Hippolyte Hentgen, Lilli Thiessen, and Mar García Albert stand back from the classic subjects and paint images; Laure Prouvost, Clément Rodzielski, and Nicolas Momein prefer not to choose between painting and sculpture but rather mix the two genres; Franz Ackermann and François Petit borrow from other sources and create flamboyant paintings; Lois Weinberger has given up designing the composition of his work and entrusts the process to insects in his stead; Corentin Canesson follows a protocol in producing figurative paintings measuring one square meter; Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson imagine the posthuman future of painting, producing the anthropometry of a robot; and finally Jennifer Douzenel, making films the way others paint, closes out the exhibition with a pictorial video. Wet paint, freed painting.

Été pourri peinture fraîche, 2019, exhibition view, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne

Laure Prouvost, This apple here has the power to turn everything here into moldy dust, 2016, collection du FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, photo: Martin Argyroglo

Nicolas Momein, terre plein 1 et 2, 2018, Courtesy de l’artiste et galerie Ceysson & Bénétière, photo: Martin Argyroglo

Nicolas Momein, Spoon, 2018, Courtesy de l’artiste et galerie Ceysson & Bénétière, photo: Martin Argyroglo

Mar García Albert, painting arrangement, 2019, Production FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, photo: Martin Argyroglo

François Petit, Force étrange, 2018, Courtesy de l’artiste, photo: Martin Argyroglo

Lois Weinberger, Paths-Subversive Conquest Of Area, 2001, Collection FRAC Alsace, photo: Martin Argyroglo

Corentin Canesson, (Sans titre), 2017; (Sans titre), 2017; And I Sleep, 2014, Collection FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, photo: Martin Argyroglo

Clément Rodzielski, Sans titre, 2011, Collection FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, photo: Martin Argyroglo

Julia Wachtel, Hatchet Job, 1992, Collection FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, photo: Martin Argyroglo

Robert Malaval, Été pourri peinture fraîche, 1972, Série, Collection FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, photo: Martin Argyroglo

Lilli Thiessen, I see you baby (shaking that hand), 2012, Collection FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, photo: Martin Argyroglo

Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson, Robochronochoreo (5), 2016, Collection du FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, photo: Martin Argyroglo