Voici le temps des assassins: Painting Beyond Modernism at Galerie Michel Journiac

Curated by Alain Berland, the exhibition "Voici le temps des assassins" at Galerie Michel Journiac (Université Paris 1 UFR Arts plastiques) from January 31 to February 22, 2018, presents around thirty contemporary works that showcase painting's diversity without deconstruction or legitimization. The show argues that contemporary painting emerged only after modernism's relevance faded. On one wall, paintings are arranged over a rudimentary grid referencing the now-obsolete modernist framework. Berland's selections stem from long-standing relationships with the artists, resulting in a generous vision free from aesthetic dogma. Featured artists include Damien Cadio, Oda Jaune, Guillaume Bresson, Eva Nielsen, Marlène Mocquet, Julien des Monstiers, Romain Bernini, Hélène Delprat, Anne Laure Sacriste, Vincent Bizien, Louise Sartor, and Philippe Brel. The exhibition explores how pictorial images can still exist and be perceived slowly in today's image-saturated culture, questioning painting's resistance to the relentless flow of digital images. Romain Bernini's work emphasizes painting's thickness and surface, Hélène Delprat likens it to the luminous screen of a phone, and Anne Laure Sacriste reduces it to its barest form. A standout piece is Philippe Brel's "Esther," miraculously alive on a blank page. The exhibition references Ernst Gombrich's notion that a painting is a hypothesis tested by looking, suggesting a promising future for the medium.