TOPOR N'EST PAS MORT
GUILLAUME BRUÈRE, NINA CHILDRESS, OLIVIA CLAVEL, BERTRAND DEZOTEUX, JULIE DOUCET, PAUL VAN DER EERDEN, STEVE GIANAKOS, KILLOFFER, MIRKA LUGOSI, BERTRAND MANDICO, ANTOINE MARQUIS, GUILLAUME PINARD, HUGUES REIP, JEAN-XAVIER RENAUD, ELSA SAHAL, DASHA SHISHKIN, TAROOP & GLABEL, DANIEL SPOERRI, NICOLAS TOPOR, HENK VISCH, WILLEM, ROLAND TOPOR
Roland Topor was an insatiable creator. He defined himself as “a simple paper worker”, but his work is impressive and protean: drawings, novels, films, plays, and television programs. His carnivalesque mind, his cruel derision, his thundering laughter have infused into us. His first drawing was published in the journal Bizarre in 1958, and his first anthology of drawings in 1960 was
entitled Les Masochistes.
In 1962, Roland Topor goes on having fun and fascinating us. He founds the group “Panique” with his friends Fernando Arrabal and Alejandro Jodorowsky.
“Panique” pays homage to Pan, the god of love and fornication, of humor and confusion. “Panique” was born as a reaction to the dogmatism of André Breton, who liked neither rock, nor science fiction, nor pornography. In 1964, his book Le locataire chimérique was published. It will, a few years later, be adapted for the cinema by Roman Polanski. And his animated film, La Planète Sauvage, made with René Laloux, was awarded the special jury award at the 1973 Cannes film festival. From the beginning of the seventies on, Topor has had steady exhibitions in galleries. Today he is thought as one of the most important drawers of the twentieth century.
During an interview with Eddy Devolder in 1994, Roland Topor said : “ I laugh about what is tragic, reality gives me asthma. I am like a schoolboy who writes and draws, it is among human means to mess up paper. I like art, because it is a way to evacuate culpability and just keep pleasure.”
This exhibition is not an homage, strictly speaking. The guest artists have not made new works for the occasion. It has only been a question of selecting drawings, paintings and films, by elective affinities, and finding connivances.
Topor explained he drew or wrote in order to find allies. This is only the project of this exhibition: to find, in these allies, the mind of Topor.
This exhibition is meant to be generous, rich and diverse, in his image, the opportunity to discover the works of 21 artists, as well as a set of drawings by Roland Topor.
Special thanks to Alexandre Devaux, Pacôme Thiellement, Nicolas Topor and the galleries : Air de Paris, Bernard Jordan, Tim Van Laere (Anvers), Semiose, Papillon, Produzentengalerie (Hambourg), and Susanne Vielmetter (Los Angeles).