This summer the first major exhibition of little-known artist Patrick Neu (born in 1963, lives in Alsace) takes place at Palais de Tokyo.

For 30 years, Patrick Neu has been developing his skill away from the limelight. With each work, he turns traditional technique on its head and embarks on new experiments which he continues for as long as necessary. He works with materials not often found in the world of art: bee wings, soot on glass, crystal, wax, Chinese ink sculpture, butterfly wings, shed snakeskin, eggshells, painting on ashes… “I turn materials and practices on their head. Crystal is, for me, simultaneously sharp, heavy, fragile and transparent (…) If I use it to make a warrior object, for example, this opens the way for questions …” (Patrick Neu)

The works selected for the exhibition are a nod to his perilous dialogue with the materials and world memory: Samurai armour in crystal and a straightjacket made from bee wings, specially created for the exhibition, a glass column blackened by smoke, birds feet cast in metal, dying iris watercolours, a dead Christ on carbonised paper, a recollection of Jérôme Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights in smoke on glass…

Patrick Neu’s work is epitome of a bubbling abstract Museum. He converses with the figures of Bosch, Holbein and Rubens and reproduces them in black smoke, guided by the properties of the material.

A publication edited by Palais de Tokyo goes with the exhibition.

Curator : Katell Jaffrès

Biography

Patrick Neu was born in 1963 and works in Alsace. He graduated from Strasbourg’s Ecole Supérieure d’Art Décoratif in 1986. In 2007 Sarkis, his art school professor, invited him to take part in two exhibitions, one in the Louvre and the other at the Musée Bourdelle in Paris. His work has since featured in collective exhibitions. He was a resident of the Villa Médicis in Rome in 1995 and Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto in 1999. In 2008, the Frac Lorraine gave him his own monographic exhibition entitled “L’instant n’en finit pas” [The moment that never ends]. The Mamco (Geneva) showed his work in 2010, as did the Hermes Foundation (La Verrière, Brussels) in 2012.

A monographic book published by Palais de Tokyo is accompanying this show.

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