ROBERT COMBAS ROBERT COMBAS A SOLO EXHIBITION OF INTERNATIONALLY KNOWN FRENCH PAINTER ROBERT COMBAS AT CAPE TOWN ART FAIR 2017 Robert Combas is a hotheaded, addicted to life, death, sex and cosmos. Born in France in 1957, he is one of the most famous painters of his generation. His art is the image of his magical genius and catalyzes his passion and intelligence. And the audience did not mistake it. He founded the “Free Figuration” movement at the beginning of the eighties: a come back to figuration drawing on a wide cultural and expressive panel and a rupture with the austere aesthetics of minimalism and arte povera. Since then, “Free Figuration” has entered the pantheon of art history. It praises western and non-western art, raw art, fine arts and applied arts alike without distinction. Robert Combas is a painter of life. His painting is gestural, like a dance that gets the artist into a trance and turns him into a shaman! He invokes the primitiveness of men, painting and the painter. He covers his canvases, drawings and sculptures with raw colors. No blending or half tones: impact requires an essential relationship to the world. Drawing comes afterward and gives shape and coherence to the surface of the paper or the canvas. Everything clashes in Robert Combas’s work. His genius reaches its peak in his Crucifix series representing the ultimate passion…of the painter! The crosses are no less than used paintbrushes, and paint tubes have expired… Everything seems to indicate that the painter sacrificed himself for the salvation of humanity. Robert Combas does not stop at a vision of the world in one piece. He feels the need to show and draw attention on every aspect of life: blood, sex, violence, war, death, god and men…. Especially men! He is the cradle of chaos and life. Numerous philosophers and intellectuals – like Michel Onfray – have studied and abundantly commented Combas’s work. Exhibitions held at the Grimaldi Forum of Monaco (2016), the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon (2012) or the Seoul Museum of Art (2006) confirm the worldwide interest for this major artist. For the first time, Robert Combas will show his most recent works in South Africa. Jean Vergès, 2017 TÊTE À PLEIN DE SIGNES ET PYRAMIDALE AU COU BIEN-SÛR 2016, mixed media on paper, 50 x 64,5 cm CHEVEUX DES JAMAÎQUES Cheveux des Jamaïques, des frisés bourrés, bourrés, bourrés sont les chamailleries d’un âne rayé d’Afrique du SOAP. 2016, mixed media on paper, 50 x 64,5 cm PETIT DIABLE À RAISINS ET FLEURS. ENTOURAGE DE FEUILLES TÊTE CROIX ET MONSIEUR TORTUEUX 2016, mixed media on paper, 50 x 64,5 cm 2016, mixed media on paper, 50 x 64,5 cm GORGONE DE RIRES DE JOIES Petit entortillement de petites têtes de Serpent dansa Rolando. Rolando danse serpents. TÊTE PLEINE DE MOTS (detail) Gorgone de rires de joies. 2016, mixed media on paper, 50 x 64,5 cm 2016, mixed media on paper, 50 x 64,5 cm Sans titre Sans titre 2017, mixed media on paper mounted on canvas, 63 x 48 cm 2017, mixed media on paper mounted on canvas, 62,5 x 47,5 cm Installation view Michel Houellebecq Rester vivant, Palais de Tokyo Paris 2016. Photo © Harald Gottschalk Installation view SELECTED BIOGRAPHY Michel Houellebecq Rester vivant Palais de Tokyo, Paris 2016. Photo © Harald Gottschalk 1957 • Birth of Robert Combas in Lyon. theme of Middle Ages, King René and mountain Sainte-Victoire (painted by Cézanne). 1977 • Robert Combas, Ketty Brindel, Hervé and Buddy Di Rosa get together as adolescents with similar preoccupations: music, rock, punk, cartoon, graphic arts and humour. Combas learns the 2005 • The monumental Goddess Isis-Venus is presented in technique of engraving and creates the premises of Figuration libre. Mots d’oreille, exhibition in parallel of the Venice Biennal, in the Magazzini del Sale. 1978 • The material to paint is expensive. Combas uses all kinds of recycled material. Together with Ketty Brindel and Hervé Di Rosa, they form the musical group les Démodés. • Big Bang, National Museum of modern art, Centre Georges-Pompidou, Paris. 1980 • Combas settles in Paris with Hervé di Rosa, Ketty Brindel and Louis Jammes. • Meets major dealers Bruno Bischofberger and Daniel Templon who both buy his work. 2006 • Savoir-Faire, major itinerant retrospective in South Korea. 1981 • First solo exhibition abroad at galerie Eva Keppel, Düsseldorf / galerie Swart, Amsterdam. 2007 • Cinéphage à gogo, Art Centre La Malmaison, Cannes • First article on the artist in the newspaper Libération: Too poor to buy a canvas. (during the Cannes Festival) presents a great diversity • Ateliers 81/82, ARC-Museum of modern art, ville de Paris. of works on the theme of movies. Let’s go, children of Picasso, article written in L’Express where Robert Combas is designated as • 2008 • Qu’es Aco? Vincent Van Gogh Foundation, Arles. the leader of Figuration libre. 2009 • Le Frimeur flamboyant, Maison européenne of 1982 • First solo show in Paris, galerie Yvon Lambert with whom Combas starts an intense and photography, Paris, gives Combas the opportunity of stimulating collaboration. giving his answer of painter to photography. • Exhibition Blanchard, Boisrond, Combas, Di Rosa, Groninger Museum, Groningen, Holland. 1983 2010 • Combas meets Lucas Mancione with whom he starts a • First solo show in New York at Leo Castelli Gallery. major work of musical creation. • Robert Combas gets a real style with very complex works where a thick black line circles the colors. 1984 2011 • They form a group : the Sans Pattes. They perform in the • 5/5: Figuration libre France/USA, with young french painters (Blanchard, Boisrond, Combas, frame of the exhibition Psychedelic Continents organized Di Rosa, Jammes) and americans (Basquiat, Crash, Haring et Scharf). Coincidence or not, a by the French Cultural Institute, Pointe-Noire, Congo. few months later, Keith Haring starts to paint pink figures looking alike the ones of Combas. 2012 • Greatest Hits, we start by the beginning and end by the end, 1985 • Retrospective at Museum Abbaye Sainte-Croix, Sables d’Olonne (France)/ Gemeentemuseum, Retrospective, Museum of contemporary art, Lyon Helmond (Holland)/ Museum of Art and Industry in Saint-Etienne (France). (France). Major event lived by Combas as an apotheosis, 1986 • Second personal exhibition at Leo Castelli gallery, New York. where he occupies 3000 square meters of the museum to express his historical course and his experimental work. 1987 • Personal exhibition, CAPC, Bordeaux (France)/ Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (Holland). Combas settles his painting and musical studio in the • Participates in L’Époque, la mode, la morale, la passion, National Museum of modern art, Centre museum where he lives during 3 months. Pompidou, Paris. • Meets Geneviève Boteilla who becomes his muse and girlfriend. The works of Combas being 2014 • Maurice j’arrive! (Maurice I arrive!), French Institute, like pages of an intimate diary, the theme of love is more and more present in the work. Maurice Island. Exhibition, musical concert by the Sans Pattes and conference Trance is knowledge, 1989 • Robert Combas realizes all the visual advertising for the exhibition Nos années 80, Cartier a shaman named Combas by the famous French Foundation. He becomes an emblematic figure of the last 10 years of creation. philosopher Michel Onfray. • First exhibition in Korea, gallery Blue, Seoul. 2015 • Bonjour la France, Seongnam Art Center, Korea / 1990 • Exhibition at Wolf Schulz Gallery, San Francisco. Goyang Cultural Foundation. • Combas-Toulouse-Lautrec, Museum Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi (France)/ Museum in Blois/ Taipei • Artistes à la Une pour la Liberté, (Artists featured for Fine Arts Museum,Taïwan. Freedom), Palais de Tokyo, Paris. 1993 • Du simple et du double, Museum of modern art, Paris. A presentation of the most famous first pages of daily newspapers revisited by 40 artists. 2000 • Marilyn Combas, simultaniously in 3 galeries, Combas appropriates himself the absolute iconic figure of femininity: Marilyn Monroe, working directly on Warhol serigraphs. 2016/17 • Robert Combas, 80s and 90s, Retrospective at the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco. 2002 • Combas settles his studio in Ivry-sur-Seine, first time he owns a place. • The Combas belonging to Yvon Lambert, Collection 2003 • One Combas season, Combas exhibits in 8 different places in Provence big size paintings on the Lambert, Avignon. CAPE TOWN ART FAIR Cover : TÊTE PLEINE DE MOTS (detail) 2016, mixed media on paper, 50 x 64,5 cm BOOTH D5 - FEB. 2017 Cape Town International Convention Centre Below : Installation view Convention Square - 1 Lower Long St Michel Houellebecq Rester vivant, Palais de Tokyo, Cape Town - South AFrica Paris 2016. Photo © Harald Gottschalk All pictures © Atelier Robert Combas www.carolinesmulders.com By appointment: 4, rue Martel 75010 Paris Mobile : +33 (0) 6 09 02 66 31 Mail : [email protected].