.Narrative Figuration #1 - By Yoyo Maeght

Narrative Figuration by Yoyo Maeght

This exhibition, at the Richard Taittinger Gallery, is, for me, like a wonderful family album where each artist is linked to a personal memory, a friendship, an artistic emotion or is a witness to my current commitment to the art world. which continues that of my illustrious grandfather, Aimé Maeght.

The United States and the artists of Narrative Figuration are intimately linked to the life of Aimé Maeght. We know little about his passions, his daring, sometimes even his activism to defend and promote art in all its expressions, so based on a few historical benchmarks, let's set off on this formidable adventure of Art, of Art and of life.

On June 20, 1964, Robert Rauschenberg shook up old Europe by winning the International Grand Prix for Painting at the Venice Biennale, a few days later, on July 27, with my sister Flo, under the gaze of Joan Miró, Alberto Giacometti and Marc Chagall, among others, we hand a golden key to André Malraux, then Minister of State for General de Gaulle, a golden key which opens the doors of the Marguerite and Aimé Maeght Foundation which he comes to inaugurate out of friendship for Aimé. James Baldwin and there and a place of honor is reserved for him at the gala dinner, placing him alongside Alberto Giacometti. In the gentle nights of the Riviera, everyone applauds Ella Fitzgerald who has come to enhance this evening which will be a landmark in the adventure of the Arts. The Maeght Foundation has just been born and has become one of the beacons of contemporary art.

Adami

Aimé Maeght, a man of current affairs and commitment, recalls, through the presence of these personalities, that on July 2, the United States Congress adopted the Civil Rights Act putting an end to all forms of segregation or discrimination based on race , color, religion, sex or national origin. The gesture may seem political, but in this year 1964, artistic expression in Europe is clearly imbued with a political statement proudly displayed in the Mythologies Quotidiennes exhibition inaugurated on July 7 at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. This exhibition tends to demonstrate that there is another form of figuration than that developed by Pop-Art or New Figuration artists.

Monory

A few years later, it was at the Maeght Foundation that Aimé Maeght organized Living Art in the USA , bringing together all the expressions of contemporary artistic creation. The Foundation's rooms present works, among others, by Ellsworth Kelly and Andy Warhol. In the evening, in Miró's Labyrinth, visitors discover sulphurous films from the New York underground, performances by Carl Andre, Hans Haacke and Robert Withman. The public is captivated by the Free Jazz of Albert Ayler, or the minimalist music of Terry Riley and La Monte Young. Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Research Arkestra respond to the interventions of conductor Lukas Foss. The dancers of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company soar across the roofs of the Foundation and into the Giacometti courtyard, to music by John Cage, in settings by Jasper Johns, Robert Morris and Frank Stella. The Maeght Foundation innovates in all forms of art, music, dance, theater, visual arts, architecture…

Relations between my grandfather and the USA date from 1946, when he went to New York to meet Marcel Duchamp. He has a crazy proposition to submit to him: to synthesize surrealism in Paris. It was during this trip that he understood that the future of art could not happen without the Americans. With the young New York dealer Samuel Kootz, they planned, for 1947, the exhibition Introduction to Modern American Painting which, in the Aimé gallery, brought together, among others, works by Gottlieb, Baziotes, Motherwell. First exhibition of American art since the war in the French capital. The exhibition, under the patronage of the United States Information Services , is accompanied by a catalog prefaced by the American philosopher and art critic Harold Rosenberg. Parisian criticism will be virulent, Lettres françaises , the famous journal of the communist poet Louis Aragon, will ask if these artists have studied the history of art. But Aimé Maeght doesn't care, he makes a name for himself in America and Time Magazine devotes its first article to him. From then on, almost each of his exhibitions will be chronicled there, like, obviously, Ellsworth Kelly's first personal exhibition at the Maeght Gallery in 1958, the second took place in 1964, it was followed by a group show Five painters and a Sculptor who reveals a very young artist of 24 years old: Gérard Fromanger, supported in the catalog by the poet Jacques Prévert. Gérard Fromanger joined the Narrative Figuration movement and became one of its major players, hailed by masterful exhibitions at the Center Pompidou in Paris, 1980 and 2016.

Arroyo

Aimé Maeght, attracted by the renewal and freshness of thought, even if revolutionary, never ceases to give emerging artists the means to express themselves, whether at the Maeght Foundation, in its galleries or via its editions, magazines, prints, or books. Aware that groups, schools or trends are in reality made up of strong individuals, he favors offering artists personal exhibitions. As was the case with the Italian Valerio Adami, whom he exhibited five times in his Paris gallery, starting in 1970.

In Spain, under the Franco dictatorship, the artists who collaborated with Maeght fled censorship and came to work in Paris, Miró, Tàpies, Palazuelo, Chillida. In 1974, Spanish democracy was in its infancy; for Aimé, it was the right moment to set up a gallery in Catalonia. Eduardo Arroyo, will thus be supported by the Galerie Maeght in Barcelona. In 2017, as an extension of Aimé's work, the Maeght Foundation offered Eduardo Arroyo a retrospective which recognized him internationally.

Jacques Monory began at the Galerie Maeght in Paris in 1976, numerous exhibitions followed, including at the Fondation Maeght including a major retrospective in 2020, which follows the monographic exhibition of Jacques Monory proposed by the Richard Taittinger Gallery. First exhibition in the United States for this artist who draws part of his inspiration from American noir novels and films.

For Aimé Maeght, publishing held an important place in the distribution and notoriety of artists. Thus in 1976, it was through the publication of prints that Hervé Télémaque began his collaboration with Maeght, subsequently followed up by exhibitions. Of course, an impressive painting has been added to the collections of the Maeght Foundation.

The monthly review L'Art Vivant , edited by Maeght, whose first issue appeared in 1968, the year of all the protests in France, widely opened its columns to new expressions, yet, under the direction of Jean Clair, the main multi- expressions in France, don't forget painting. Art Vivant becomes the relay, even the showcase of Narrative Figuration and offers artists a platform for exchanges with their opponents: art critics, performers and other followers of the dematerialization of art. The exchanges, completely free, are sometimes violent. The story and the exhibition presented by Richard Taittinger in New York offer, fifty years later, the most beautiful answer. Long live painting when it is of such great quality, both in sociological, political and of course artistic terms!

View of the exhibition

Sensitized from my childhood to the work of these tutelary figures of Narrative Figuration, then convinced of the quality of each of these nine major artists, Jacques Monory, Bernard Rancillac, Erró, Peter Saul, Valerio Adami, Hervé Télémaque, Eduardo Arroyo, Gérard Fromanger and Cybele Varela, it is a pleasure and an honor for me to participate in the development of this first American exhibition dedicated to Narrative Figuration, a pictorial movement rich in diverse personalities, coming from extremely varied backgrounds, but above all, moment of creation that has become essential in the History of Art.

Some artists accompanied me during these weeks of preparation. I thank them for their expressions of friendship which prove, if proof were necessary, that great artists are also great men and great women.

Yoyo Maeght, Paris, 2021.

The complete exhibition file here

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