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Press release
Serge Poliakoff
The Dream of Forms
18 October 2013 – 23 February 2014
Opening: Thursday 17 October 6-9 pm
Press preview: Thursday 17 October 11 am - 2 pm
The Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris is devoting a large-scale
retrospective to the abstract painter Serge Poliakoff (1900-1969): in all,
some 150 works from the period 1946-1969. Since 1970 there has been
no significant exhibition of the work of this major representative of the
School of Paris in what became his home city. Lauded by such leading
historians of abstraction as Charles Estienne, Michel Ragon and Dora
Vallier, and championed by dealers Denise René and Dina Vierny,
Poliakoff drew the interest of many private collectors.
The exhibition is laid out in sequences revolving around key works: from
his exploratory years and the postwar period – when he was part of the
abstract avant-garde, showed in various salons and caught Kandinsky's eye
– until the more pared-down modernity of the late paintings (1968-1969).
Like all practitioners of full abstraction, Poliakoff was concerned with the
relationships between line and surface, form and content, colour and light.
But the apparent formal unity of his works conceals a host of painterly
solutions clearly revealed by the exhibition itinerary. Crucial here are
concentration of colour, vibrancy of texture and skilful arrangement of forms
that balance each other in contained, energetic tension.
This is the interpretation offered by an exhibition that demonstrates the
singularity of an especially sensitive approach and the intense spirituality of
a body of work rigorously focused on what Pierre Guéguen called the 'dream
of forms in themselves which is the great mystery of "the abstract"'.
The presentation is rounded off by a cluster of gouaches, while other
projects involving fabrics, stained glass and ceramics underscore Poliakoff's
fruitful relationship with the ornamental.
Serge Poliakoff
Composition in Pink, 1954
Collection Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève
Courtesy Applicat-Prazan, Paris
© ADAGP Paris, 2013
Director
Fabrice Hergott
Exhibition curator
Dominique Gagneux
Visitor information
Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris
11 avenue du Président Wilson
75116 Paris
Tél. 01 53 67 40 00
www.mam.paris.fr
Open Tuesday - Sunday
10 am – 6 pm
Late night opening : Thursday until 10 pm
Admission
Full rate : 9 €
Concessions : 7 € (over-60s, teachers,
jobseekers, large family cardholders)
Half price : 4.50 € (ages 14-26, minimum
welfare benefit recipients)
Free for under-14s
Educational activities
Information and bookings
The exhibition is backed up by a mass of documentary material –
photographs and visual and sound archives –providing an insight into
the painter's life. The tumultuous beginnings of a young Russian emigrant
fleeing the revolution; the postwar artistic ambience; and ultimately the years
of success, during which his work attracted the attention of such figures from
the worlds of politics, fashion and the cinema as Yves Saint-Laurent, Greta
Garbo, Yul Brynner and Anatol Litvak; but most of all, the young art scene of
the 1960s, which saw Poliakoff as one of painting's most radical modernists.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a generously illustrated catalogue,
published by Paris Musées. Price : 30 euros.
Tél. 01 53 67 40 80
Press officer
Maud Ohana
Email : [email protected]
Tél. : 01 53 67 40 51
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