La Piscine, museum of art and industry André Diligent
From November 6, 2021 to February 6, 2022
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Birthday obliges, we go to Roubaix for an exhibition on Alexej von Jawlensky, which is the centerpiece of the historic anniversary of one of the most beautiful museums in France. 20 years already and for the occasion the Roubaix Swimming Pool is showing us a whole new face. How can this Russian painter, a major artist of the 1st half of the 20th century, a true icon in Germany, Switzerland or the United States, still be so little known in France? It is the story of the journey of a painter of genius, obsessed with the face. And if today, in an era fascinated by selfies, this theme seems to be obvious, it is a revolution in Jawlensky’s time. At a time when abstraction dominates, it suffices to observe these two self-portraits at the entrance of the exhibition, sometimes impressionist, sometimes fawn, to understand this fixed idea of the artist and the permanent revolution of his pictorial quest. The artist begins with landscapes and still lifes, before quickly giving us extraordinary syntheses, whose disturbing outline encapsulates the variations of his moods. It did not take more for the painter to decide to concentrate on portraits, recognizable at the beginning, gradually becoming faces, then heads, with simplified forms and uncertain resemblance, soon erected to the rank of modern icons. The artist declines the expressions in palettes of incandescent colors, mixing golden yellow with azure blue, deep black with carmine red, around almost musical variations. A daring synthesis with a breathtaking palette, lively and controlled lines, carefully orchestrated chromatic geometries. And to better understand the visionary nature of his works, the exhibition offers us a striking face to face with the artists of his time: Matisse, Rouault, Delaunay, Kandinsky, van Dongen or Paul Klee. A master among the masters whose representations cannot suffer from any comparison. These mystical faces take on a universal dimension here, which seems to pierce the very essence of the human soul.
“Large figures in powerful and incandescent colors, no longer naturalistic at all […] from which spring a terrible power, that of an interior ecstasy ”. This plan, Alexej von Jawlensky never left him from 1917, when the Russian painter, outstanding colorist and traveling companion of Kandinsky and Paul Klee with whom he formed the group of the “Four Blues”, devotes himself almost exclusively to portraiture. “Heads” with simplified shapes and uncertain resemblance, characterized by the violence of color and thick dark outlines, soon erected to the rank of modern icons. La Piscine de Roubaix lifts the veil on the almost experimental practice of this major artist of the first half of the 20th century, through a vast retrospective which intends to restore the painter’s very personal contribution to modernity. Its singularity is perhaps due to its position in between, between East and West, between expressionism and Fauvism, between figuration and abstraction. Beside him are works by artists to whom he was intimately linked: Matisse, Rouault, Kandinsky, Klee … A spectacular display for this artist first influenced by the Nabi group, Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh, but who will evolve towards a daring synthesis of all his inspirations leading him little by little on the edge of abstraction.
The Roubaix Swimming Pool celebrates its 20th anniversary!
THE POOL, MUSEUM OF ART AND INDUSTRY ANDRÉ DILIGENT
From Nov 6, 2021 to Feb 6 2022
23 rue de l’Esperance,
59100 Roubaix
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