Serge Labégorre's Dual Exhibitions in Paris: Surrealist Tensions

Serge Labégorre presented two concurrent exhibitions in Paris in 2002: at Chapelle de la Sorbonne (October 18 to November 30) and at Galerie Pierre Marie Vitoux (October 18 to November 16). A third exhibition ran simultaneously at Galerie Christine Phal (October 18 to November 16). The artist's work explores contradictions between life and death, thought and body, sign and thing, word and flesh. His timeless figures appear both imprisoned in their own painted world and immediately present to the viewer. The paintings stage conflicts between deep blacks and vivid colors, sweeping gestures and flat planes, proximity and distance, presence and representation. Critic Norbert Hillaire describes these tensions as giving the work a power beyond period or genre categories, opening it toward a retroprospective horizon—painting as suspended writing.