Gérard Garouste | Exhibition Catalogue

Description

Born in 1946 in Paris, painter and sculptor, Gérard Garouste is one of the major figures of French contemporary art.

After studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Garouste began a career as a scenographer in the 1970s. In 1977, he presented a total show at the Parisian theater "Le Palace", as an author, director and decorator. Recognition as an artist began with his first art exhibition in 1980 at the Durand-Dessert gallery in Paris, where he showed figurative, mythological and allegorical works.

Since his first exhibition abroad (Holly Solomon Gallery, NY, 1982), Garouste has been widely exhibited internationally. His last exhibitions were held at the Cairo Biennale in 2019 and at the National Gallery of Modern Art of New Delhi in 2020.

Figurative and surrealist, Gérard Garouste explores the relationship with the unconscious and the sacred, and his works recall El Greco, Tintoretto or Chagall. Fascinated by existential questions about origin, time and transmission, Gérard Garouste's work stems from associations of ideas. As disturbing as they are fascinating, his paintings are full of fantastic animals and historical figures. His sources of inspiration emanate from the Bible as much as from the masterpieces of popular culture and literature by authors such as Cervantes and Rabelais. Garouste's work is not intended to be seductive, it relentlessly questions and upsets certainties.

The exhibition at the Center Pompidou, a true consecration of the artist's career, is designed as a complete retrospective and aims to capture the richness of the unclassifiable work of Gérard Garouste, "the intranquille".