"There is something dark in us that makes life brighter" says the poet and film-maker Pasolini. But what do we really perceive out of the darkness? As soon as the dark side emerges, we enter into the realm of fancy and the abandoned reason fades away. Out of this deep dive into the depths, some artists make emerge creatures both scary and fascinating. In a famous engraving by Goya there are monsters that spring up, produced by the slumbering reason. These monsters exorcise our fears and this catharsis, paradoxical as it is, reassures and replenishes us. It is because this dark side is lucidity and this interior light, even though it is black, helps us to face the tragic sense of the human destiny. And this is how we shall introduce the works of Isabelle Vialle, Hans Jorgensen, Christophe Biskup and Jean-Marie Cartereau. Each of them, in his own way, shares our anxiety so as to maintain it at the right distance and make us feel stronger.

Philippe RILLON and Bernard THOMAS-Roudeix,

ancient works

January 21 to February 14, 2015

Bernard THOMAS-Roudeix is a painter and ceramist. Since the 60s, and the School of Fine Arts, his artistic path crosses Philippe RILLON's one, painter too, and, henceforth, artistic director of the gallery. Both are sharing a longstanding complicity. So it was obvious to give each of them, carte blanche to examine the development of his artwork, its permanencies and its variations. The exhibition will focus yet on the last fifteen years with an "accrochage" that will highlight the contrast effects between the two artists as well as between the different periods of each.

 Paintings: Yutaka Imai, Tokuhiro KITAKATSU, Shitomi Murakami, Kyoko Sasai, Serge SAUNIERE Pascale VEYRON.

 Sculptures Sylvie RIVILLON

 November 5 - December 20, 2014

In September 1888, Vincent Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo: " Look, isn't it quite a true religion what they are teaching us those so genuine japanese who live in the Nature as if they were themselves flowers

Artists and poets of that time, have sensed, through the prints, a new way of seeing the world which makes vanish the boundaries between people and things.

They discovered a very different way of being present in the world, the exact opposite to the western culture conception in which the all-powerfull man stands facing Nature. In this new approach, on the contrary, everything communicates and is at one with Nature. The visible and the one who sees are merging.

The Western painters, since Impressionism, remember and have retained of the japanese lesson a treatment of space and time hustling the pictorial tradition of classicism: asymmetrical composition, introduction of movement and ephemeral and especially the importance of the void.

Since then, the dialogue did not cease between both cultures, one revealing the "oversights" of the other.

The exhibition "Japan so far, so close" attempts to establish, not a dialogue, but a resonance between some Japanese artists living in France for a long time, and some French artists, who are, to varying degrees, inhabited by this spirit.

Yutaka Imai, Shitomi Murakami, Kyoko Sasai, Tokuhiro Kitakatsu, have kept in their "French" work, the powerful echo of the many facets of their original culture.

Pascale Veyron, Serge Saunière, Sylvie Rivillon, each with his own approach, come and compose, just as a counterpoint, a harmony that does not exclude intense contrasts.

Drawings: Christophe Biskup - Frédéric Brigaud - Georges Bru - Jean-Marie Cartereau - Nadine Cosentino - Jean-Marc Ehanno - Michèle Iznardo - Michel Madore - Gottfried Salzmann

Sculptures: Frédéric Brigaud

September 24 - November 1st

The exhibition is like a partial section in the contemporary drawing practice. It does not seek in any way to reconnect with a "neo-classicism" which has degenerated since a long time into a sterile academicism. So would it not be necessary to put a question mark after this famous quote from Mr. Ingres: “Drawing is the probity of art”?

The drawing has long surpassed its original function of a "project" (drawing and design are etymologically synonymous); it is nowadays exceptionally, practiced as a sketching technique, but has become an autonomous art, which is now exclusively sought for itself. Its borders with other form of art have faded without erasing completely its specificity. Since the Renaissance, amateurs of beautiful papers, beautiful sheets and fine works of art continue the tradition of amateur cabinets. The fragility of the drawing, and its often modest dimensions became paradoxically its main assets, to such an extend that, over the last few years, events and exhibitions dedicated to drawing have been increasing considerably all around the world.

Artists who practice the drawing exclusively are rare. Some have won the recognition of ever wider circles of amateurs. Among them we chose the nine artists who will take part in this exhibition.

And then, drawing remains the shortest and the most natural way to reach the aesthetic feeling. It is instantaneous aesthetic emotion, the one which does not lie nor cheat... because a good drawing appears immediately as an obviousness. The drawing testifies to the artist’s authenticity, it is his test of truth, the integrity of his art.

Françoise BERTSCH, DUŠKA, Jean Francois TABURET, painters,

Yukichi INOUE, sculptor

June 4-July 12

To see a landscape as the reflection of a state of mind, rather than as a viewpoint, is a commonplace of romanticism in literature and painting. To project one's inwardness upon nature is an essential feature of modernity in art. But the four artists we present are going far beyond the cliché. Each one in his own way exceeds the vis-à-vis with the landscape, each one gets rid of it, to vibrate in unison together with the nature. All dimensions of experience are implemented beyond the mere look. They set up a complete unity between subject and object, between " one's feeling  and feeling itself " ( "le sentant et le senti") according to the expression of the French philosopher Merleau-Ponty.

K.VASILI - Philippe RILLON painters, Janine KORTZ-WAINTROP sculptor.

April 17-May 31

The "ART aujourd'hui" gallery explores the mythological dimension of art with three artists who awaken in us the memory of primordial myths. Their works are not objects but things which are looking at us and make us remember the pictures and stories that have always presented us mirrors in which the human condition is reflected. As myths, they reveal the mystery but don't deflower it. They interrogate more that they do answer the questions and they embody the universally shared imaginary world that is always out of time.

A subtle breadcrumb unites these three works, but at the door of the maze, we long to return and stay again in this world finally re-enchanted : Ancient Greece, rich in mythical characters before being the birthplace of philosophy, Africa, the land of all spirits and fetishes, and many other countries crossed by shamanism, seize the imagination of artists and whisper the secrets of magic to those who watch at the works.

Pierre DESSONS, paintings and sculptures, Marc GIAI-MINIET, paintings, boxes and prints.

March 5 to April 13

  Featuring works by  Marc GIAI-MINIET and Pierre DESSONS is always a risky challenge, because these two artists derogate from the habits of the " art world ".  On the contrary of its post-modern attitudes, they ask and harshly question us upon the meaning of life, while our epoch manifests a complete lack of benchmarks and imagination in the hierarchy of its values.

Marc Giai-Miniet and Pierre Dessons are disturbing, because their both universes, in spite of being so different, dig our shadow side. They tear up the mask of the"good" feelings and of the well settled "goodness." They "make" the Ogre, figure outcome of the childhood's terrors and infernal depths. Giai-Miniet and Dessons are talking about the difficult relationship with the "other", the illusory and stealthy nature of the exchange. With the Sartre of " Huis clos ", they might say: "Hell is other people". However, hell is also within us, and if it happens, by chance, that their imaginary meet our daily life, it will be in order to emphasize the character of " the uncanny " (Freud) of a world appearing suddenly as hostile and frightening. Yet their singular theatres of metamorphoses, open, to one able to see, towards new forms of beauty, in order to say better the paradoxes of our time. Painters, they do not make pretty pictures but beautiful works. Reaffirming the omnipotence of art and thought, they re-enchant the world with a salutary hint of animism. And the Ogre is blissfully kept away by a heavy dose of this black humour so dear to the surrealists' heart.

Galerie ART aujourd'hui

8, rue Alfred Stevens

9th Paris (Pigalle metro)

Contact Marianne Rillon: 01 71 37 93 51 +  06 52 34 98 24

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.galerie-art-aujourdhui.com

The gallery is open Wednesday and Thursday from 13h to 19h, Friday and Saturday from 15h to 20h and by appointment.

an overview of the gallery's artists.

36 artists , 2 openings

December 4 to 22 : Opening Thursday, December 5 : 6-9 PM

Jan 22 - March 1: opening Wednesday 22 Jan : 6-9 PM

This 2013 last exhibition  will also be the first one of the new year, rich, full of surprises and mainly devoted to "small sized works" of our artists. Through the constant renewal of exposed works, you will be able to discover, revisit, and acquire, for yourself or a loved one, pieces by artists who have already been presented in the gallery since it opened last April :

Nicole BOTTET, Gottfried SALZMANN,  Gisèle LACROIX, WOLFRAM, Jörg HERMLE, Bernard LE NEN, Bernard THOMAS- ROUDEIX, Pierre DUCLOU, Franck DUMINIL, Yutaka IMAÏ, Pascale PROFFIT, Pierre SAINT- PAUL, Marc PRIALNIC, Jean Paul SOUVRAZ.

You will also discover  works of new artists who will participate in forthcoming exhibitions in the gallery :

Christophe BISKUP, Catherine BOUROCHE, Frédéric BRIGAUD, Pierre DESSONS, Monique DOLLE-LACOUR, DUSKA, Marc GIAI-MINIET, Jean François GUZRANYI, Abraham HADAD, Hans JORGENSEN, Tokuhiro KITAKATSU,  Janine KORTZ-WAINTROP, Ariel MOSCOVICI, Shitomi MURAKAMI, Philippe RILLON, Sylvie RIVILLON, Kyoko SASAÏ, Pierre SOUCHAUD, Jean François TABURET, K VASILI, Pascale VEYRON, Isabelle VIALLE.

 Thus, the small sized works, traditionally more "affordable", always find their due place on the walls of the amateur. But the greatness of a work of art does not lie in its size, but in the spirit that animates it.

These small sized works are also "great works". Small or large, we expect them to show us the same commitment, the same presence, the same humanity.

(Two singular artists in the art of to-day)

October 23 - November 30.

Marc Prialnic - Jean-Paul Souvraz

It may seem paradoxical to present the works of two artists so incompatible as Marc Prialnic and Jean Paul Souvraz in one same exhibition. Each of them has widened its singularity in such a singular way that their contours became strangers to one another, as those of islands in archipelago that would have become today's art. Imagination and art do not fear the contradiction nor the paradox. So we deliberately chose the contrast of these two singular expressions:

• When Souvraz exalts the color, Prialnic immerses us in the shadow of the "in there" ...

• When Souvraz leads us into a truculent carnival, Prialnic invokes the ghosts of the past ...

• When Souvraz stages some improbable creatures, half-human, half-animal, Prialnic endlessly invokes an enigmatic and  faceless figure ...

Today's art is no longer confined to any current in which the criticism may inscribe the works. The age of "avant-gardes" is over. Each artist must now invent the form and content of its own singularity. Unique, he must look like no other. So is the case with Prialnic and Souvraz.

Their singular authenticity has allowed us to bring them together.

For his upcoming autumn exhibition, Galerie ART Aujourd’hui will feature a rare and unusual exhibition of the painter Pierre SAINT-PAUL and the sculptor Pierre MARTINON. These two artists did not meet each other before, but their joint presentation immediately seemed to us essential as an imperious and obvious necessity. From the confrontation between one’s painting and the other’s sculpture emerge a deep unity.  The spirit that lives within their work, beyond their differences, is entirely personified in the form they offer. Form is never for them an illustration of an idea or, worst, of any anecdote or vain ornament, but the only bearable attempt to its realization. « Form is sedimented (settled) content » said the German philosopher Th. Adorno. Sorry for this rough translation of Adorno’s formulation, which is, anyway, so perfectly suitable for Saint-Paul’s and Martinon’s works