Philippe Huart - Ceremony / Sacrifice

 Egbert BaquéContemporary will present for the first time in Germany works by the French artist Philippe Huart. His solo show Ceremony/Sacrificecomprises both paintings and drawings.

In his paintings, Philippe Huart masterfully employs the colourful, shiny look of pop art, which he learned to master during his time as a designer of record covers for artists like Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. However, his works show something quite different from the harmless, polished world of advertising: pills and surgical instruments, barbed wire, revolvers, gas masks, and torture hoods dominate these paintings. Their happy, colourful impression seems to sweeten the threatening and violent elements rather tongue in cheek.

Things are quite different with Philippe Huart’s drawings. In his brilliant black-and-white graphite drawings in many delicate shades of grey, Huart concentrates completely on the human figure. There is no context provided, and yet they could not be more topical. The lonely homo sapiens, subjected to agonizing brutality or rapt in spiritual or erotic devotion – in Philippe Huart’s art, suffering and ecstasy, the extremes of human coexistence, are very close indeed. Both his paintings and his drawings challenge the beholder to not just look at the surface, but to actually venture a second, a disturbing look. And here Philippe Huart is not afraid to transgress limits or break with conventions.

 It is high time to present this exceptional artist, who has already exhibited in numerous European countries as well as the US, in Latin America, and Asian cities like Hong Kong and Seoul, finally also in Germany.