"Milshtein enfant terrible de l'art" is an exhibition that will be held at the City Hall of the 10th arrondissement of Paris from November 28 to January 20, 2025.
A new meeting with the public, it is an opportunity not only to discover and rediscover the work of Zwy Milshtein but also to get to know the man behind the artist: a character with an extraordinary career, who is still tragically part of current events today.
Born in 1934 in the former USSR, in Chisinau, in a Moldovan Jewish family, he fled his native country in 1940 in the face of the oppressive Stalinist regime and then the Nazi invasion. He then began an exodus through Eastern Europe which ended in 1948 when he arrived in Israel. In 1956, thanks to a scholarship to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he moved to France, a country he would not leave until his death in 2020. It was in this context of war and exodus that Milshtein grew up and developed, while learning art from a young age with artists such as Georges Stefanescu and Zeev Ben-Zvi. Deeply marked by his past, which would never cease to pursue and influence him, Milshtein revealed himself to be full of contradictions. A man with a keen sense of humor who could be both funny and cynical, joyful and dark, he was a complex being who delivered himself through his art, where a quest for freedom was expressed and satisfied. From stolen childhood to enfant terrible, Milshtein experimented, playing with formats, materials and media. A protean artist whose imagination is matched only by his originality, he is a true "jack-of-all-trades" capable of technical prowess.
By mirroring photographs, autobiographical quotes and works among the most emblematic and representative of his work, the exhibition "Milshtein enfant terrible de l'art" is an open door to everything that, ultimately, was constitutive of his worlds. Far from a retrospective, this exhibition is above all a tribute to Milshtein who would have celebrated his 90th birthday this year.
An accomplished artist, he still enjoys a certain recognition in France and abroad, as evidenced by his numerous personal and collective exhibitions. In addition, his works today enrich private collections as well as important public collections such as that of the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris (MAM), the Musée des arts décoratifs de Paris (MAD) and the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA).
Read more