Jean-Luc Verna

Born in 1966 in Nice Lives and works in Paris Represented by Air de Paris, Paris Jean-Luc Verna taught drawing at EPIAR Villa Arson in Nice and currently at the school of fine arts in Poitiers. His work has the particularity of linking by various references the history of art and that of rock music (underground), it takes up and notably displaces elements of learned and popular culture and traces a parallel history of contemporary mythologies. Siouxsie Sioux, his muse changed his life the day he saw her for the first time on an Alain Maneval show when he was still a teenager. A large part of his works and in particular his drawings - produced on a very wide variety of old papers recovered and sometimes assembled in the form of polyptychs - thus refer to this fascination that has become a source of inspiration. Her body is the backbone of her unique work which refers to phenomena of alterations (tattoos, piercing, makeup) and which updates questions of representation and reproduction. In her photographs, her body takes poses and simultaneously embodies figures from the history of classical art and rock culture. On stage, the artist transforms into a rock star with his group I Apologize or into a dancer in the choreographies of Gisèle Vienne. He multiplies the metamorphoses, going so far as to interpret all the roles of a film under the camera of Brice Dellsperger. He thus defeats categories and mixes genres. Not without humor, he is still confusing by giving the same title to all his personal exhibitions since 1995: "You don't wear a little makeup?" - "No." Jean Luc Verna will benefit from a monographic exhibition in 2016 at the MAC / VAL in Vitry-sur-Seine. His drawings have been exhibited as part of the Guerlain donation at the Center Pompidou in Paris; as well as on the occasion of the 1984-1999 exhibition La Décennie at the Center Pompidou-Metz in 2014. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions (Centrale for Contemporary Art, Brussels, MuCEM, Marseille, Center Pompidou, Paris, Team Gallery, New York, Forde, Geneva, Villa Arson, Nice, Museum of Modern Art of the city of Paris, Mac / Val ...). His works are present in prestigious collections such as those of MoMA, NY, The Judith Rothshild Foundation, Flourtown, RAM Foundation, Amsterdam, Center Pompidou, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Mac / Val as well as numerous fonds Regional Contemporary Art. A reference monograph is available in the contemporary creation collection, co-published by Flammarion / CNAP.