Jean-Michel BASQUIAT - Francesco CLEMENTE - EVA & ADELE - Keith HARING - Jeff KOONS - McDERMOTT & McGOUGH - David MACH - Brigitte NAHON - A.R. PENCK - PIERRE ET GILLES - Bettina RHEIMS - Andy WARHOL

Through a presentation, which is never other than, original, the Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont will be showing ZOO, featuring works of contemporary artists (drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures) inspired by the animal world.

The animal, as an archetype, represents the deepest layers of the unconscious mind and the basic instincts, which drive us all. It represents in particular the libido, as in the work entitled Spider King Obscuring The Sun, by Francesco Clemente, the iconography of which smashes through all of the frontiers of representation in a continuous metamorphosis, which is both internal and external.

The animals, which frequently appear in dreams and in the arts, symbolize partial identifications to the human kind. As so many mirrors of the deep drives of mankind, of its domesticated or wild instincts, each animal is linked to a part of ourselves, incorporated or to be incorporated into the harmonized unity of the person. Thus, through the series Animal, Bettina Rheims disturbs the spectator by confronting him with stuffed animals with an inherent realism and dynamism but damaged and gutted. In a more aerial fashion, Brigitte Nahon revisits her passion for opera and dance through poetic and magical sculptures such as La Danse des Papillons and Le Vol des Oiseaux.

Through parietal and primitive expression, a. r. Penck, whose pseudonym is homage to a renowned geologist specializing in the glacial period, uses animal metaphors in his interpretation of political situations. Jäger und Elefant, which represents a hunting scene, is a reference to the aphorism of the artist "Until he has fired, the hunter cannot be sure of having hit his quarry. This is where ideas take shape".

David Mach will be presenting his famous heads made of thousands of matches, including Sabre-Toothed Tiger, the extravagant head of a tiger in exuberant action and in color. His most recent creation, entitled Fucking Bear, shows us another aspect of the creative talent of David Mach, where he manipulates his materials to contrast the softness of the toy bear and the danger from household instruments in an astonishing play of balances.

George Condo and Jeff Koons will be sending us into the cartoon-like world which they so love, full of animals in strange and enlightening poses. The works of these inheritors of the Ready-Made of Duchamp and of Pop Art are here alongside Children´s Paintings by Andy Warhol, which confront society and the world of Art with its consumerist behaviors.

The animal can also appear as a witness to the morals of an époque. Thus MacDermott and MacGough, in their reflection on the timeless nature of Art, here revisit the curiosity shop of the nineteenth century in their work entitled Chiroptera, and animal painting through Diogenes and Julius Silemas.