黑料不打烊

Philippe 颁辞驳苍茅别 was born in France in 1957. He has been investigating the concepts of close observation, image and memory for nearly 20 years. His wax-on- canvas works, with their characteristic distorted effect, raise questions about the current situation of humanity. Lately the works have also examined questions related to architecture and the urban landscape, as well as the relation between representation and abstraction.

In 颁辞驳苍茅别鈥檚 current show at the Litvak Gallery, mounted in cooperation with the Daniel Templon Gallery in Paris, paintings of urban architecture inspired by the artist鈥檚 visit to Tel Aviv last year will be displayed side-by-side with paintings of sandcastles. The two subjects are linked by 颁辞驳苍茅别鈥檚 fragile technique of painting with wax. This serves as both a description of the sandcastles, which can be destroyed in an instant, and a description of Tel Aviv鈥檚 impressive architecture as a city that will gradually slip away. In these paintings, as in Jacques Pr茅vert鈥檚 poem, A Page of Writing, it seems as if 鈥渢he windows become sand again,鈥� the metal melts and the building鈥檚 framework turns into misty smoke and dissipates slowly, until it vanishes.

At the beginning of the 1990s, 颁辞驳苍茅别 started to use photographed images as the jumping-off point for his paintings. He photographs his immediate environment and the places he visits and later transfers the images to canvas. Over the years, 颁辞驳苍茅别 developed a unique painting technique that uses melted wax combined with pigments on canvas. He spreads the wax on the canvas, places sheets of plastic over it and then melts it with an iron. When he finishes, he removes the plastic to reveal sculptural surfaces, rough and scarred, which add another dimension to the two-dimensional painting. 颁辞驳苍茅别 creates the effect of an image that is familiar yet distorted, as if frozen in space with a blurring of the distinctions between past and present, fantasy and reality. In his paintings, the buildings of Tel Aviv are characterized by asymmetry, incompleteness and destruction; perhaps this is an expression of the artist鈥檚 or the viewers鈥� feelings in light of the ever-present security threats.

A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Nantes in western France, 颁辞驳苍茅别 now divides his des Beaux-arts since 2005. He received the Prix de Rome in 1982, the Prix de Villa Medicis in Rome in 1990 and was a finalist for the Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2004.

During the past few years, his works have been displayed in numerous public institutions in France, including the Mus茅e des Beaux Arts d鈥橝ngers (2005); the Fondation Jean-Marc et Claudine Salomon, Ch芒teau d鈥橝renthon, Alex (2006); and FRAC Haute-Normandie, Sotteville-l猫s-Rouen (2007). In 2011, the Palace of Versailles opened a permanent exhibition of his work 脡肠丑辞, consisting of 44 circular paintings, which was commissioned for the newly renovated Grand Commun building.

Currently 颁辞驳苍茅别 is participating in a group exhibition at the new center for contemporary art, Hangar 脿 bananes, in Nantes. The exhibition was curated by Jean- Charles Vergne and also includes works by Darren Almond, Marc Bauer, Eberhard Havekost and Jim Jarmusch. The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Grenoble, France, will mount a comprehensive exhibition of 颁辞驳苍茅别鈥檚 work in October, 2012.

颁辞驳苍茅别鈥檚 works are highly sought after by international collectors and are shown regularly at prominent art fairs throughout the world, including Art Basel in Switzerland, Art Paris and many more. His works also form part of the permanent collection of major public institutions, such as the Cartier Foundation, the Pompidou Center, the Ludwig Museum in Aachen, Germany, and the National Foundation for Contemporary Art, Paris.