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Rest in Peace: new works by Mamali Shafahi and Domenico Gutknecht

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Installation view at the Galerie Mitterrand's booth at ArtParis 2024 In my last post, marking the tenth anniversary of the death of painter David Caille, I wrote that the latest example of David's enduring legacy is his influence on Mamali Shafahi's latest project,  Rest in Peace. Rest in Peace marks a new, more contemplative phase in Mamali's output, and a new example of artistic collaboration. In an unexpected return to a traditional medium, oil pastels (set, jewel-like, in high-relief casings) the series draws together, as if taking stock, all the strands that have run through his work over the past twenty years: the active involvement, in some cases transformation, of others; new technologies and their impact on us all; concern that new generations, focusing on technology, are losing their ancestral memory of traditional cultures, myths and legends; the quest, therefore, to build bridges between our high-tech future and the richness of the traditional past, especia
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David Caille : 1986 - 2014. He will not be forgotten

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I've already posted a short article about David Caille, but as today is the tenth anniversary of his death, I thought I'd make a longer post, even if it repeats some of the former one, and add more photos. David was an immensely talented young painter, but at 27 he took his own life: a tragedy for him and his family, of course, but also a great loss to art. He'd studied in Düsseldorf with Peter Doig, who on learning of his death wrote: ' I loved David's work and really really liked him as a person - as a fellow artist and as a student. He first came to visit me in Düsseldorf from Lyon with his portfolio, and showed me his work. He asked if he could join my class and he said he felt he was marginalised making paintings in Lyon. I was immediately attracted to his painted language and the imagery that he worked with. I enjoyed having him in my class, as did all the students who worked there during this time. He was a very popular and respected student and even years af
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La Ferme du Buisson in Noisiel, Justin Fitzpatrick and some nice surprises...

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  Noisiel is a suburb on the RER A line between Paris and Disneyland, now part of the Marne-la-Vallée new town. Its main claim to fame is a magnificent, metal-framed, water-powered factory with polychrome brickwork, the Moulin Saulnier (1872), thrown, Chenonceaux-style, across the river Marne for Chocolat Menier. The industrial-scale dairy farm that supplied the chocolate factory, in its day the world's largest, is now an arts complex, with a national theatre, a cinema, a mediatheque and exhibition halls: La Ferme du Buisson . I'd never previously set foot in Noisiel, but was drawn there last week, on a warm spring day and in excellent company, by Ballotta , an exhibition of characteristically impressive, carefully-crafted paintings and sculptures by the young Irish artist Justin Fitzpatrick (previously shown at the Seventeen Gallery in London: this link takes you to the presentation text and photos on the gallery's website). Anyone who knows Fitzpatrick's work will un
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Hervé Di Rosa: Le passe-mondes ('the world-crosser'), at the Pompidou Centre

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  From February to August this year, the Pompidou Center is showing a compact but very seductive overview of the work of Hervé di Rosa, focusing mainly on his work using traditional craft techniques and media from the various countries he's visited.  I'm not sure we're really supposed to like di Rosa so much these days, but I do, and if he's good enough for the Pompidou Centre, he's certainly good enough for me. You might think his work, very 80s post-modern in spirit, would have dated, but no, I think it's ageing well. Any of the pieces on display would be an obvious fit in my own collection, if only I could afford it, which I can't. But anyway, they weren't for sale. I don't have anything to add, except some of the photos I took while there. This is a link to the Pompidou Centre's introduction to the exhibition.
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Josèfa Ntjam and LVMH Métiers d'Art : Une Cosmogonie d’Océans

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  As I already explained in a November 2023 post , Josèfa Ntjam is a young artist I first came across when helping with preparations for  Alternating Currents, the inaugural exhibition at Parallel Circuit, in Tehran . Her work was to be included in the exhibition, and I found myself translating the text of one of her videos (as it happens, later shown at  FRAC Ile de France's 40th birthday exhibition, Gunaikeion , in Romainville), so it could be subtitled for Iran, and taking a train to her home town to pick up some works (cushions) for dispatch there. I've taken an interest in her work since then. In 2023, Josèfa was selected to spend a year in residence with LVMH's Métiers d'Art program, the aim of which is to bring top-level artisans and young artists closer together. Josèfa spent her year with an organisation called the Jade Groupe, and, as the LVMH Métiers d'Art website explains, 'envisioned sculptures nearly two metres high, even though the company is spec
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