Erik Boulatov's Diptych Challenges Pastoral Time at Galerie Pièce Unique

Erik Boulatov's exhibition at Galerie Pièce Unique in Paris from October 6 to December 10, 2011, showcases his distinctive approach to painting, moving beyond his earlier anti-Soviet dissidence. Since his 1988 retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, Boulatov has established a legitimate presence in France. The exhibition highlights his original engagement with historical avant-gardes, blending admiration for modernist icons with humorous ideological inscriptions. The centerpiece is a large diptych titled 'Une grange en Normandie' (A Barn in Normandy), which presents a day-night alternation across two horizontal panels, breaking with bucolic landscape representation. This work explores time as a fracture within the pictorial image, continuing Boulatov's long-standing obsession with horizontality as a formal and ideological critique. The diptych's structure features a wall of light promising a reduction to a vanishing point, culminating in ultimate clarity. The exhibition was reviewed by Dominique Païni.