At the fair…

To mark the opening of its new 700 square-metre space Paris space, Galerie Templon proposes a playful and poetic collective exhibition, which takes us through its long 52-year history.

The presentation of the fair echoes the double identity at the core of the gallery. It has always promoted the French avant-garde, whilst opening the pathway to recognition of American contemporary artists: including founding fathers of American Contemporary art – the Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell and the Color Field painter Jules Olitski, who are put into perspective with the work of Georges Mathieu. 

Jim Dine pioneer of the happening, Frank Stella who spear-headed Minimalism, with George Segal the most existentialist of Pop artists, are considered with their French contemporaries: Arman, as a representative of the Nouveaux Réalistes and Victor Vasarely for Op Art.

Of course, the presence of younger generations, with an international profile: Franz Ackermann (German, born in 1963), Ivan Navarro (Chilean, born in 1972), Chiharu Shiota (Japanese, born in 1972), confirm the the forward-looking and global aspect of the programme the gallery, yet maintaining a dialogue with established artists.

At Unlimited…

As part of the Unlimited section of the fair the gallery will exhibit installations by French artist Claude Viallat and Indian artist Surdarshan Shetty.

The work by Claude Viallat, “Installation (1982- 2018)” is a partial re-creation of a work shown for the first and only time in 1982 as part of a retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. The spectacular work demonstrates the way the founder of the Support-Surface movement works with space, an aspect of his work rarely seen. These three immense canvases cover close to 235m2, including 35 metres of the wall, floating between the ground, ceiling and wall.  

In contrast, the work “Shoonya Ghar (Empty is this house)” by Surdarshan Shetty is a video and sculpture installation. The work centres on an hour-long video, by the Mumbai-based artist, bringing together Indian music and performance within a constructed setting that plays with the narrative of conventions, lineal temporality and our perceptions of reality. 

Surdarshan Shetty (1961) is known for his poetic, hybrid constructions that interrogate the force of the object and the rituals, themes and movements associated with the loss of and fusion of Indian and Western traditions.

Shoonya Ghar ‘Empty is this house) references a poem by 12th century poet Gorakhnath, part of the formal Nirgun tradition, on the themes of emptiness, the void and the formless. It refers to the peregrinations of a man in a city with ten doors, symbolic of the openings of the body. The installation stands in an abandoned quarry, an empty and surreal landscape in which the elaboration of a setting becomes the main protagonist, as the characters come and go.