From March 20 to April 30, 2016, the Jean-Collet Municipal Gallery in Vitry-sur-Seine presents, on a new proposal by Jacques Py and Catherine Viollet, a large-scale group exhibition focused on burlesque.

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Maurice Guibert, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec dressed in kimono, 1892 Photograph - source Bnf

entitled Bourlesque, it brings together works combining painting, sculpture, installation, video and performance of twenty artists placed under the aegis of the photographic portrait of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec dressed in a kimono and squinting severely: Michel Blazy, Anna and Bernhard Blume, Rémi Boinot, Raphaël Chipault and Gilles Gerbaud, Erik Dietman, Anthony Duchêne, Richard Fauguet, Patrice Ferrasse, Jérémy Laffon, Loriot & Mélia, Saverio Lucariello, Philippe Mayaux, François Mezzapelle, Francis Montillaud, Valérie Mréjen, Simon Nicaise, Bernard Quesniaux , Alexandra Sa, Peter Saul, and Patrick Van Caeckenbergh.

Originally, burlesque was a style of writing, a verbal and bodily game. It has since become a qualifier whose scope it is advisable to try to define as it is often applied subjectively to situations, characters, achievements in expressive fields that are now very different, ranging from the circus to the cinema, to literature. to plastic arts, from performance to video ... not to mention music or television series.

For bOurlesque, the artists knowingly display it, have fun with this lucidity and this retreat on oneself necessary to assume the part of self-derision bringing in their wake the sympathy of the spectators as so many caustic and jubilant processes which take the form of communicative outlet. By playing with codes, refuting seriousness and stimulating good taste as established values, they would approach these anti-heroes of the American Comics whose posture they would temporarily embody, mimic outrageous expressions or take up situations disrupting social order .

Jacques Py is an art critic and independent curator, member of the AICA-Section France and of the Associated Exhibition Curators. Catherine Viollet is director of the Galerie municipal Jean-Collet and visual arts advisor for the city of Vitry-sur-Seine.

  • Lunch on art on Thursday March 31 from 12:15 p.m.
  • Meeting with the public and performance on Sunday April 10 at 16 p.m.
  • Art history class by Alexandra Fau on Tuesday April 26 at 18 p.m.

This exhibition is part of the burlesque season, an initiative of the Municipal School of Plastic Arts in Vitry-sur-Seine.