Looking at 'The Other Side'
As part of a key Indo-French artistic exchange, a major retrospective exhibition of Gérard Garouste, one of France's leading contemporary artists - opens in the Indian capital, featuring around sixty paintings that span forty years of his artistic creation, from 1980 to 2019.
The survey exhibition titled 'Gérard Garouste - The Other Side' is the biggest show of the artist's work outside Europe, and his debut in India. The exhibition is inspired by history's founding texts and combines myth and surrealist imagery.
Under the patronage of the French Ministry of Culture, organised by the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Ministry of Culture, Government of India, and the French Institute in India, with the support of private patrons and Galerie Templon, the show exhibits complex work--combining Christian and Hebrew cultures, myths and legends.
The show is an unparalleled opportunity to discover the enigmatic artist's imaginary and historical repertoire – which includes, among its sources of inspiration, myths and legends, religion and folklore. It is curated by former French Minister of Culture, Jean-Jacques Aillagon.
Both a painter and a sculptor, Garouste's art draws on his own life story and classical mythology, as well as founding religious texts like Bible, Talmud and the Kabbalah and European literary greats, Cervantes, or Goethe.
While inaugurating the exhibition, by Prahlad Singh Patel, Minister of State for Culture and Tourism, Government of India, said, 'I greatly value the exhibition as this will build vibrant cultural relations between India and France by generating greater interest among Indian people in French art and culture."
French Minister of Culture, Franck Riester said, "Your (Garouste) work is a source of pride for France and we are proud to be able to share it with the Indian public and I am sure it will have a special echo in India."
Director General, Adwaita Gadanayak, NGMA, Delhi said: 'We are delighted to host this exhibition. Garouste is a thinker, a philosopher, there is a lot of thoughts in his paintings. Words cannot describe these paintings, you have to experience it."
The artist Gérard Garouste said: 'A deeper truth and reality is revealed through myth, deeper than through history. The myths pulls you inside, and it is from there that you can communicate with others. I feel very attracted to Indian myths, but, for me, that goes through reading and studying the original texts and through the original language. So that will be for my next life."
The exhibition will go on till March 29 at NGMA
