Glen Baxter's Absurdist Drawings at Galerie Martine et Thibault de la Châtre

Galerie Martine et Thibault de la Châtre in Paris presents an exhibition of works by English artist Glen Baxter, running from December 6, 2012 to January 12, 2013. For over 40 years, Baxter has been subverting 1930s adventure novel imagery to create absurd and hilarious situations. His drawings, executed in a naive style reminiscent of early 20th-century illustrated books, are paired with meticulously typeset captions. The humor often arises from the disconnect between bizarre images and deadpan texts, or vice versa. For example, two children calmly sketch a rhinoceros charging at them, while one notes the shadow on its horn. In another, a scout rides a wild boar with a wine bottle, captioned as his first encounter with Corsican cuisine. Sometimes both image and text are incongruous, as when cowboys discuss a painting that could be an early fake Mondrian or a late authentic Burberry. Baxter's work relies on the simultaneous disjunction and interdependence of image and text, creating a whole greater than the sum of its parts.