Pop up Gallery in Cannes

13 June - 30 September 2013

Opera Gallery and Art Walk present

Nowness!

An International Contemporary Collection

Opera Gallery and Art Walk take pride in opening Nowness! – the premiering exhibition of the pop up gallery in Cannes this summer.
The pop up galleries are an ongoing collaboration between Katinka Traaseth of Art Walk and the internationally spread and acclaimed Opera Gallery, founded in Paris by Gilles Dyan in 1994. Together they offer collectors and art devotees a diversity of art from all the corners of the globe. The pop up concept indicates the galleries stay on for a limited time only, making the art experience (and its location) fleeting and even more valuable.

Nowness! features an outstandingly broad selection of artists and mediums. Including monumental sculptures, mesmerizing abstract paintings, remarkable portraits and whimsical pop art, as well as compelling photographs. The exhibition showcases 20 artists with diverse messagesand subjects, while their depth, creativity and significance is shared.

The figurative artists range from classic painters to eccentric experimentalists, all with their distinct vision. Modern and courageous brushstrokes are set to canvas by Thomas Canto, baring strong witness of his past as a graffiti-painter. Movement and power are the main components of his work. The same applies to Umberto Ciceri. His whole artistic manifesto is a tribute to the optical illusion of movement made evident through his spinning ballerinas.

Artists employing artifacts found in alternative dwellings to the art world create fascinating hybrid conceptions. Badges, metal sheets, newspaper clippings and computer disks are all transformed into artworks. Nick Gentry is in the image family, making portraits from retired computer disks. Technology, cyber culture and obsolete media are themes Gentry confront. André Monet is yet another collage artist. He applies his beautiful portraits, made with photographical precision, to canvases dressed in maps and the pages of timeworn books. The pop art reactions of Paul Alexis are painted in monochrome, strong hues onto metal sheets. Though Alexis’ creations are reminiscent of the likes of Lichtenstein, they are actually a blaze against the overexposure of certain public figures.

The remaining pool of figurative painters make equally forceful designs.
Jean-Pierre Roc-Roussey paints flamboyant themes, with an equally impressive palette of colour and emotion. Passionate use of colour and composition is also Lita Cabellut's signature trait. She paints the expressions of her portraits in such a communicative way, forever loyal to her enjoyable fresco-technique. Xiong Lijun creates her figures in a similarly powerful fashion,but using very different tools. Her fluorescent tones of pink, blue, green and yellowflood the canvases, outlining her dancing or posingcharacters. Xiong Lijun´s inspiration flows from magazines, cartoons and commercialism. All her artistic aspects document young and urban China.

The abstract artists of the show will lure you into their conceptual universe, in their independent ways. Wang Yehan has a special way of bringing his canvases to life, by the methodical system of his abstraction. You can loose yourself in his compositions, and there is always something undiscovered in every new gaze. Eduardo Guelfenbein also transports you away with his speedy swirls and waves. Hypnotically, and with great energy, his thick-textured surface makes for a wonderful view. Chae Sung-Pil´s landscapes are like journeys. Using soil to make his own paint, as well as water, gold and silver dust he creates images depicting the natural elements, by engaging them in his work, naturally.

Hervé Lewis, Gérard Rancinan, and Olivier Dassault are the artists behind the cameras.They use lenses instead of brushes, darkrooms instead of studios. Lewis is a master of capturing stunning femininity paired with erotic boldness in his photos. Gérard Rancinan may be the boldest of all, entangling historical themes with contemporary critique, through theatrical and provoking compositions. On the flip side of photographic precision is photographic abstraction. Dassault´s blurred realities follow philosophic traits: analysis, decomposition, and conception wrapped in a mysterious aesthetic. Somewhere in the middle of precision and abstraction there is Yasmina Alaoui and Marco Guerra. Their marriage of photo and swirly ink is magical. This couple´s work will leave you daydreaming and wondering; when did the camera retire and the henna-pattern begin?

Some artists turn to a more dense and tangible matter. Their pieces require curves, texture and dimensions. Hiro Ando, Mauro Corda, Fan Xiaoyan, and Laurence Jenkell are sculptors.
Fan Xiaoyan’s warrior women prove their power and freedom, even through smooth steel casts. They have found artistic siblings in Corda’s sleek and athletic silver beings, having strikingmovement and strength in common. Japanese pop characters made solid, glossy and bright by Ando, have met their soulmates in Jenkell’s whimsical Bonbons. None of them ever apologizingfor their lighthearted wonder.

We wish to bring every art enthusiast a visually and intellectually pleasing artistic supplement here on the French Riviera. And, yes, we think we Cannes!

Pop up Gallery open until September 30th, 2013

11 Square Mérimée
06400 Cannes
T. +33 (0)4 97 06 53 86 / [email protected]