Three Pop Artists Confront Global Politics at Galerie du Centre

Galerie du Centre in Paris presents '3 pop guys 40 years after', a group exhibition curated by Alain Matarasso featuring new works by Peter Saul, Derek Boshier, and Bernard Rancillac. The show confronts the artists' visions of the current world, all having produced politically charged images since the 1960s while remaining outside American artistic and political orthodoxy. Peter Saul's 'Bush over Baghdad' (2003) depicts the US president with a Swiss cheese skull crushing Baghdad, with a horrified Salvador Dalí exclaiming about a 'smoking gun'. Derek Boshier's works are calmer, dominated by pink and green-blue tones, featuring open books and objects forming rebuses, including a Le Monde newspaper from days after 9/11 with a cover image of Manhattan on fire and salt and pepper shakers shaped like the Twin Towers. Bernard Rancillac's paintings superimpose AFP news images of current conflicts: 'La Nuit tchetchène' collides faces of Muslim women with relaxing Russian soldiers, while 'No Photo' shows a soldier's hand trying to hide a row of shrouded bodies. Peter Saul's 'The Devil Wins' depicts the devil as a red cow trampling a God resembling Bin Laden, surrounded by champagne bottles with breasts. The exhibition runs from May 22 to July 5, 2003.