With summer approaching, the Galerie Paris-Beijing is delighted to announce the first group show of 2021, gatherings the works of six different artists : Dorian Cohen, Marion Charlet, Volkan Aslan, Mehmet Ali Uysal, Adrien Belgrand and Martin Parr.
As summer is drawing near, the exhibition Here, There, Somewhere brings you on a poetic journey at the crossroads of six artists’ visual worlds. Here, the beginning and the end of the roads don’t matter, as we wish to celebrate the beauty along the way rather than the arrival point itself. Like the Scottish poet and essayist Kenneth White, who used to leave without a destination and wander where his heart would take him, recording his experiences and encounters in a notebook, each artwork displayed here represents a stop in an aesthetic and utopic inner quest.
Our journey begins with a selection of artworks by Dorian Cohen, a painter who revisits contemporary urban landscapes by mixing in his compositions various infrastructures such as roads, bridges and buildings with a very lush and animated vegetation. These architectural views bring us to the city’s outskirts, inviting us to travel. Through his Départ en Vacances series, true cornerstone of this exhibition, Dorian Cohen offers a first outlet to our everyday banality.
Tourists and vacationers are two important figures in Martin Parr’s work. He even dedicates his Small World series between 1987 and 1994 to them. The photographer documents the movements and attitudes of travelers, deliberatly choosing to step back to assume the position of witness and critic of this modern phenomenon that is mass tourism. These vernacular scenes, captured by the camera lens, chronicle in a humoristic manner and without any filters the privileged lives of the western popular classes.
It is then Adrien Belgrand, the french painter of textured bodies of water and heavenly landscapes, who brings us to contemplation. As nature is idealized, the viewers find themselves immersed in the fanciful appearance of the painting, enabled through a great care for details, and the beauty of the moment immortalized on the canvas. The personal take of the artist on spaces and colours, contrasted by a cold and hyperrealistic objectivity, wraps our gaze in a silent yet familiar softness.
We continue this journey through an encounter with some artworks from the Turkish artist Volkan Aslan, including his video installation Home Sweet Home, which offers a meditative reflection on the subjects of displacement and inner growth. Often set in a specific sociopolitical context, Volkan Aslan’s work also shows a deeply universal reach as it illustrates with a lot of humanity the complexity of our inner selves and the intellectual excitement that drives us to do better and always yearn for more.
Staying on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, the quest offered by Mehmet Ali Uysal, the other Turkish artist in this group show, is more personal and autobiographical. Encouraging us to look back on our past, Mehmet Ali Uysal’s artworks outline a path for us to get back to what is really essential, a sincere reconnection to our deepest roots. The art piece Horizon reuses the imagery of the ocean which is dear to the artist.
Our itinerary ends with the summery works of Marion Charlet who invites us into an exotic world made of tangy and fluorescent colours. Endlessly attracted by the whimsical environment unfolding before their eyes, the viewer becomes a character in this psychedelic play where they carry on with their journey, here, there, somewhere…
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