Jérémy Demester
FTW
21 Feb - 30 Mar 2019
JÉRÉMY DEMESTER
FTW
21 February – 30 March 2019
”She stood in tears amid the alien corn”
John Keats “Ode to a Nightingale”
Galerie Max Hetzler is delighted to announce Jérémy Demester's exhibition “FTW”. This is the artist's third solo exhibition at Galerie Max Hetzler and his second at the Paris gallery.
The sculpture representing a hermit is at the origin of the exhibition “FTW”. A vagabond dressed in frayed rags, with his blind human eyes, he made an amphora his home, living one day at a time. He is Diogenes the Cynic.
Indifferent to cultural conventions, he discourses, eats and masturbates in public. Carrying a lamp in full daylight, he wanders around the city looking for a human being, repeating tirelessly ‘I am looking for a man’ to each stranger he meets.
The hermit “FTW #6” is always armed; his shotgun serving as a walking stick. The three letters he overlooks – FTW – state a riddle that spans over all seven paintings. It is put to the test throughout the exhibition.
The hill is ablaze. A last tree resists. Its white hot trunk holds the abyss back while its top calls for an abstraction of the forms (“FTW #1”).
Ruth, mother of a thousand of sons, mourns her future orphans. She stands amidst the corn in John Keats’ poem "Ode to a Nightingale" (“FTW #2”).
The stone arch is a metal threshold. Symbolic of a voracious technical growth, it is yet the birthplace of what will also rescue (“FTW #3”).
In the hermit’s home, at the very bottom of the amphora, the altarpiece - theatre of rhythms and gestures – opens itself ("FTW #4").
Upright of the white birches, poplars suggests a world of lava, a possible future without humankind (“FTW #5” and “FTW#8”).
A new divinity, ruthless, he doesn’t serve anyone. He is the worlds’ killer (“FTW #7”).
J.D
Jérémy Demester (1988, Digne, France) lives and works between Paris, France and Ouidah, Benin. A graduate of the the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he received Dean’s Honours and the Friends of the Beaux-Arts Prize in 2015. His work has been the subject of several solo shows including Stiftung zur Förderung zeitgenössischer Kunst in Weidingen (Germany), 2018; Château Malromé (Bordeaux region), 2018; 33 engravings for Benji's revenge, Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain Saint-Étienne Métropole, 2016; Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts (Paris), 2015 and Original Zeke, Zinsou Foundation (Benin), 2015. He participated to group shows such as Matière Grise, Galerie Max Hetzler (Paris), 2017; Das Bild hängt schief, Galerie Max Hetzler (Berlin), 2016 and Ciel d’éther, Brownstone Fondation (Paris), 2014. In 2018, he created the ballet 'Courage' for Peindre la Nuit exhibition at Centre Pompidou-Metz.
Demester's works are included in the collections of Zinsou Foundation, Istanbul Modern and Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain Saint-Etienne Métropole.
FTW
21 February – 30 March 2019
”She stood in tears amid the alien corn”
John Keats “Ode to a Nightingale”
Galerie Max Hetzler is delighted to announce Jérémy Demester's exhibition “FTW”. This is the artist's third solo exhibition at Galerie Max Hetzler and his second at the Paris gallery.
The sculpture representing a hermit is at the origin of the exhibition “FTW”. A vagabond dressed in frayed rags, with his blind human eyes, he made an amphora his home, living one day at a time. He is Diogenes the Cynic.
Indifferent to cultural conventions, he discourses, eats and masturbates in public. Carrying a lamp in full daylight, he wanders around the city looking for a human being, repeating tirelessly ‘I am looking for a man’ to each stranger he meets.
The hermit “FTW #6” is always armed; his shotgun serving as a walking stick. The three letters he overlooks – FTW – state a riddle that spans over all seven paintings. It is put to the test throughout the exhibition.
The hill is ablaze. A last tree resists. Its white hot trunk holds the abyss back while its top calls for an abstraction of the forms (“FTW #1”).
Ruth, mother of a thousand of sons, mourns her future orphans. She stands amidst the corn in John Keats’ poem "Ode to a Nightingale" (“FTW #2”).
The stone arch is a metal threshold. Symbolic of a voracious technical growth, it is yet the birthplace of what will also rescue (“FTW #3”).
In the hermit’s home, at the very bottom of the amphora, the altarpiece - theatre of rhythms and gestures – opens itself ("FTW #4").
Upright of the white birches, poplars suggests a world of lava, a possible future without humankind (“FTW #5” and “FTW#8”).
A new divinity, ruthless, he doesn’t serve anyone. He is the worlds’ killer (“FTW #7”).
J.D
Jérémy Demester (1988, Digne, France) lives and works between Paris, France and Ouidah, Benin. A graduate of the the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he received Dean’s Honours and the Friends of the Beaux-Arts Prize in 2015. His work has been the subject of several solo shows including Stiftung zur Förderung zeitgenössischer Kunst in Weidingen (Germany), 2018; Château Malromé (Bordeaux region), 2018; 33 engravings for Benji's revenge, Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain Saint-Étienne Métropole, 2016; Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts (Paris), 2015 and Original Zeke, Zinsou Foundation (Benin), 2015. He participated to group shows such as Matière Grise, Galerie Max Hetzler (Paris), 2017; Das Bild hängt schief, Galerie Max Hetzler (Berlin), 2016 and Ciel d’éther, Brownstone Fondation (Paris), 2014. In 2018, he created the ballet 'Courage' for Peindre la Nuit exhibition at Centre Pompidou-Metz.
Demester's works are included in the collections of Zinsou Foundation, Istanbul Modern and Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain Saint-Etienne Métropole.