Lovay Fine Arts

Paris International

With
  • Gretta Sarfaty
  • Chris Kauffmann

17– 22 October 2023

BOOTH 2.14
17 Rue du Fbg Poissonnière
75009 Paris

Preview
Tuesday 17 October
11h-20h

Our booth creates a dialogue between two artists from different backgrounds whose works focus on the question of the individual and their relationship to society, through practices essentially based on self-portraiture. They address questions of identity and representation already raised by second wave feminist artists in the late 1960s and 1970s, of whom Gretta Sarfaty is a strong example.

Both artists question the mediums of painting and photography in a hybrid, multi-media formulation that plays with with satire, art history and pop culture references.

Gretta Sarfaty

Since the early 1970s, Gretta Sarfaty has been questioning and undermining stereotypical representations of women.

Her work is born from an investigative practice of photographic self-portraiture and performance that critiques the technological reproduction of the female image.

We are presenting a group of historical paintings and photographs from one of the artist’s most important series - A Woman’s Diary (1976-1977). While in the Transformations series (1974-1977) she focuses on distorting her facial features, here she lets her body form almost abstract signs, organized in sequence. Sarfaty deconstructed her body parts, transforming and editing them by transfer and repetition.

Exhibitions include solo and group shows at Musée du Palais du Luxembourg; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Art Institute of Chicago; Internacionaal Cultureel Centrum, Antwerp; Galleria Diagramma, Milano; Keith Green Gallery, New York; Nuno Centeno Gallery, Porto; Central Galeria, São Paulo; Sartorial Contemporary Art, London; Leeds College of Art and Design; Centro de Arte y Comunicacíon, Buenos Aires, Museu de Arte de São Paulo.

Collections: Museum Seralves, Porto; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, The Hall Foundation, Connecticut.

Chris Kauffmann

Through painting and collages, Chris Kauffmann (b. 1999, lives in Paris) provides space for a modest figure (often represented in self-portrait form) whose hidden talents and abilities can finally shine. The naively edited or vulnerably painted bodies evoke a sense of importance, combined with the awkward and shy way these portraits are viewed. Kauffmann’s playful game of revealing and hiding behind non-functional objects, the painting gesture, and chosen characters further emphasises the complexity and fluidity of the notion of persona in contemporary society.

Recent exhibitions include Basel Social Club, Lovay Fine Arts, Basel, Switzerland; Kino Sud, Basel Social Club, Weiss Falk, Basel, Switzerland; i tried being myself I ended being others, curated by Mohamed Almusibli at Lovay Fine Arts, Geneva; Chemical X, Cherish, Geneva; Poésie Parano at Forde, Geneva.