Galerie NEC is the gallery in the Marais that represents my partner Vincent, and he has had five successful exhibitions with them since 2006. They actually have two galleries, the original gallery on rue Vieille du Temple, and their second space around the corner, across from the Picasso Museum.
I passed by both galleries last week to say “hello” to the owners Alain Chiglien and Roger Nilsson, who I hadn’t see since the lockdown. They were happy to be up and running again and I very much liked the two latest exhibitions.
At the main space on rue Veille du Temple, a series of white porcelain figures by artist Louise Hindsgavl fills the space. In many of the pieces, Hindsgavl fluidly swirls the porcelain to abstraction, while others are derived from nature such as the branches. But then they take on another life when strange and familiar faces and figures grow out of them; a Smurf, human extremities, a literal baby face, and the head of a baby dinosaur. Moving away from just creating beautiful porcelain pieces, Hindsgavl gives the material a new-found depth and reality. She states "My characters are steeped in humanity and animality and are transformed into a mythological universe".
At their second gallery,Julien Comte Gaz reimagines vintage, nude photos by snipping razor thin slivers of the photo and stripping them across the images. The focus shifts to the whole image, rather than the immediate nudity, thus creating a different visual context.In a series of female nudes, Comte Gaz, cuts tiny squares that resemble computer pixilation’s and places them on the photos in a less intrusive way than the other series, where the male photos were more explicit. The female nudes are less graphic and more in the style of innocent pinup girls captured in nature, most likely from the 1940s or 1950s.
Both exhibits are up until July 30.
Galerie NEC
17 Rue Vieille du Temple, 75003
20 rue des Coutures Saint-Gervais, 7500
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