French Touche at Villa Tamaris Surveys French Painting

The exhibition 'French Touche' at Villa Tamaris in La Seyne sur Mer (March 10–April 22, 2007) presents a non-exhaustive but dense panorama of contemporary French painting, featuring artists from established figures to emerging talents. Curated by Christophe Avella-Bagur, the show includes works by Avella-Bagur, Jules Rames, Michel Gouéry, Vuk Vidor, Jean Lérin, Xiao Fan, Daniel Déjean, Vincent Corpet, Gilles Miquelis, and Axel Pahlavi. The title ironically questions the notion of a distinct 'French touch' in painting, as the artists show no clear stylistic kinship. Avella-Bagur creates New Age fiction of a being seeking incarnation; Rames offers punk collages with aggressive acrylics; Gouéry composes erotic-burlesque hallucinatory images; Vidor's resins evoke sensual phantasmagoria. Lérin's evanescent portraits contrast with Xiao Fan's canvases loaded with mass-consumption waste tied by organic tubing. Déjean's semi-figurative, semi-abstract scenes oscillate between familiar and strange. Corpet, a senior figure with dry, art-historically referenced painting, does not seem to inspire direct followers. Standouts include young Gilles Miquelis, whose ordinary yet disturbing imagery shows undeniable painterly talent, and Axel Pahlavi, who reinvents history painting by mixing styles and disciplines. The exhibition highlights the solitude of French painters, lacking a cohesive 'school' like the Leipzig School or American trends, which weakens their international visibility.