Sept 9 — 12: solo show on Art Paris Art Fair. Selected by curator Hervé Mikaeloff for his focus on the French Figurative Scene
Sept 9 — 18: solo show at the gallery
In literally taking hold of Vallotton's painting, Malingrëy pays tribute to the work of an artist he holds in the highest esteem, but he does so in a peculiar manner. As a child can concentrate on cutting out cardboard figures of toy soldiers, here the painter removes, or borrows, the human figure from Vallotton's painting. And after taking possession of the nude figure, his bewildered expression seems to convey the question: What next?
How does the artist address creators and works that have come before, that continue to be an inspiration but can sometimes become a burden? Through a series of paintings that also seem to function as a narrative sequence, Malingrëy seems to provide the most literally concrete response, namely, that the works that haunt us must be grasped, manipulated, reproduced, and almost manhandled, , until they are sufficiently familiar to be deconstructed into individual pieces, and then incorporated, piece by piece, into one's own works. Almost child's play.
The Nude is eminently suitable to being cut out, as it seems so detached from the background in Vallotton's painting. But it is not the only element that François Malingrëy borrows. Note also the multiple draperies, the receding planes, the red room opening onto another room and then onto a garden. The painter creates cross sections in space, which may or may not line up, as one would arrange a mini theatre with paper cutouts. The doors sometimes open onto the garden and sometimes onto an infinite series of red bedrooms. The scissors compose a decor: the painter's approach here is less a matter of applying brushstrokes than of cutting, chiseling, arranging elements from the array of shapes spread across the table, cut out from a large white sheet.
From this eminently referential painting, and from his own compositions and models as well, François Malingrëy proposes a set of works that operate as montages — assemblies of shapes, planes, contours, canvas and painted wood. With a background in illustration and the performing arts, the artist uses the term "staging" to describe his modus operandi. There is something theatrical in the way the figures appear and disappear, as though entering and exiting the stage, or sometimes half-hidden in the shadow of a wall or behind a curtain, and ready to appear under the spotlights in the next tableau.
Half-nude, wearing simple or solemn black garments or draped in broad capes midway between ghost costumes and painter's coats, the figures seem to be surprised during a dress rehearsal, as they undergo final costume fittings, and fine-tune their movements, attitudes and positions on the stage. The spaces depicted, the gray, red and pink rooms, are stage sets for the acts in the play. (Is the painted wood another part of the set?) And much is happening offstage, as indicated by the artist's attention to the edges of the paintings, inviting us to be conscious of what will inevitably escape when attempting to "read" an image.
Once again, this is a form of play involving a dialogue between theatrical space and the dramatis personae, as the tale unfolds through narrative sequencing. The artist no longer makes rocks with his fists, but rather manipulates the strings above the theater of his own design.
— Extract from the text by Nina Ferrer-Gleize, published in the exhibition catalog
