Antoine Marquis & Frédéric Poincelet — La mauvaise étoile — Catherine Putman Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: October 20 → 25, 2020

In the very special context of 2020 during which many projects have had to be cancelled or postponed, le Pari(s), La Semaine de l’Art, under the aegis of the Comité Professionnel des galeries d’art, assembles all the collective or individual initiatives taken by nearly 200 galleries in Paris to make the traditional week of the Fiac (Foire internationale d’art contemporain)—also cancelled—a strong moment for contemporary art.

Thus for one week from 20 to 25 October, we shall push back the walls of the gallery to display—next to Gérard Traquandi’s exhibition ’Réjouis-toi’—a proposal by Antoine Marquis and Frédéric Poincelet.

Frédéric Poincelet, Sans titre, 2020 Ballpoint, spray painting and colour ink on paper — 65 × 50 cm

They have long worked together. Both imprinted with a strong culture of contemporary drawing, exchange and discussion between them form true emulation. Last year, Frédéric Poincelet invited Antoine Marquis to show work at the gallery in the Des Fleurs pour Valentin group exhibition. This year, on the occasion of our participation in Paréidolie¬—the international show of contemporary drawing in Marseille (postponed until 2021) — we suggested that they set up a dialogue between their drawings centred on questions of landscape and architecture.

The drawings of Antoine Marquis are timeless and the fruit of very personal culture gained as an autodidact in contact with engravings by Fernand Khnopff and Gustave Doré, Philip Guston’s painting, films by Eric Rohmer and Dario Argento and also, like Frédéric Poincelet, visits to underground bookshops in Paris at the end of the 1990s.

Antoine Marquis, Sans titre, 2020 Poudre de pigment sur toile — 18 × 24 cm

Overall, his drawings vary between a classical world coming to an end, permeated by French museum culture, and a more popular world of the inner suburbs imbued with humour. Between life in a château and life at the foot of council blocks. Between elegant traditionalism and joyful resourcefulness. Made using graphite powder or pigments on canvas, his latest landscapes of cruel blocks of flats at night or manor houses/shacks incarnate these suspended worlds.

Antoine Marquis, Sans titre, 2020 Poudre de pigment sur toile — 24 × 18 cm

Frédéric Poincelet uses a method of drawing that is justified only for him, that is not at the service of any artistic practice. He thus places himself in a tradition running from L’Assiette au Beurre to Bazooka, from The New Yorker to Elles sont de sorties and also uses his own cartoon drawing.

Landscapes are highlighted in his drawings. They are urban areas, countryside or wilderness and provide a visit to a succession of places that are mysterious, abandoned or exploding. They are imaginary landscapes drawn with ultra-realistic care using a ballpoint pen only. A break in space, a strange detail or a mistake are disconcerting and the colours add to this unreal, psychedelic aspect.

Frédéric Poincelet, Sans titre, 2020 Ballpoint, spray painting, colour ink on paper — 65 × 50 cm

While Antoine Marquis works on this series of urban landscapes and desolate houses from the Paris suburbs to the queen’s hamlet at Versailles, Frédéric Poincelet draws chateaux with no access and absurd architecture and huts in the woods. A dialogue is established.