Choices Paris — Christian berst art brut (klein et berst) — Christian berst art brut — Event — Slash Paris

Past: May 29 → 31, 2015

Choices Paris 2015 Pour cette seconde édition de Choices, quarante galeries s’associent pour proposer l’un des derniers temps forts de la saison artistique parisienne. Un week-end de présentation de solo shows dans toute la ville qui fait écho à la grande exposition organisée aux Beaux-Arts de Paris de ces artistes dont le commissariat est confié à Alfred Pacquement.

John Uhro Kemp, also known as Crystal John, lived in Berkeley (California), where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. After several years that were punctuated by travels, research and numerous jobs, he began to seek enlightenment through meditation, metaphysics, particularly through formulas and numbers drawn from his own history. Many of his works were designed and formatted, then photocopied, with the sole objective of being distributed to as many people as possible.

John Uhro Kemp, Installation, 2011 Courtesy of the artist & Christian Berst art brut (klein et berst), Paris

We owe the rescue and archiving of his numerous works to his friend, the photographer Aram Muksian, namely thousands of pages, diagrams, sketches and numerical sequences, to the point of colonizing endless bundles of dot-matrix printer paper.

Daniel Baumann — commissioner, art critic and current director of the Kunsthalle of Zürich as well as of the Wölfli Foundation in Berne — dedicated an exhibit to him at the 548 Center in NY in 2014.

John Uhro Kemp, The Spirit and Soul of YHVH, 2003 Marqueur sur papier — 21,6 × 33 cm Courtesy of the artist & Christian Berst art brut (klein et berst), Paris

The work of John Urho Kemp will be presented at Choices as an installation that will account for the different aspects of his work. Alfred Pacquement will curate the commission with the assistance of students from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

A monographic exhibition, the first in a gallery, will be dedicated to him in May 2015 at the Christian Berst Art Brut Gallery — curated by Gaël Charbau — and will be accompanied by a bilingual catalog of 200 pages.

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