George Segal’s tableaux are reflections on the individual and on consumer society. He plays on the permeability of spaces, inviting the viewer to converse with his anonymous and motionless figures.

Segal flips the hierarchies: the objects are as real and permanent as nature itself, whereas the human figures are made by hand out of one of the most fragile materials: plaster.

In the 1960s, George Segal developed a layered plaster bandage moulding technique by applying the bandages directly to the model’s body.

He used this technique to reveal the evocative power of gesture and its poetic, social, erotic and political dimensions. The bandage, an instrument of healing, thus becomes a metaphor for the fragility of life, underlining a need for transcendence below the body’s empty shell.

The exhibition features a comprehensive selection of the American artist’s works.

Originally a realist (The Dancers, The Couple), George Segal’s works began to evolve in the 1970s, turning towards a more expansive and freer style of expression.

The coloured works of the 1980s, both figurative paintings and still lives (Nude on Red Chair, Girl on Wicker Lounge), enter into a dialogue with the history of art and master painters like Cézanne and Degas.