Martial Raysse

Born in 1936 in Golfe-Juan (France), MARTIAL RAYSSE lives and works in Issigeac (France). For Martial Raysse, the work’s space is one of experimentation. He combines techniques and mediums, embedding neon lights in the canvas (High Tension, 1964) and placing his works on artificial beaches (À propos de New York en peinturama, 1964). At the end of the 1960s, the arrival of video enabled him to make offbeat and parodic films such as Portrait Electro, Machin Chose (1967) and Le Grand Départ (1972). Although these aspects of his work correlate him with the Fluxus movement, his work is always cheerful and playful. A filmmaker, painter, and sculptor, he believes in the therapeutic dimension of art and makes the choice of color, volume, and drawing. Having traversed the artistic currents of the second half of the 20th century, his work is fully situated in the present. Kamel Mennour and Martial Raysse have been working together since 2015.

He studied literature and then, without losing his acute interest for language, turned toward painting at the end of the 1950s, enrolling in the School of Decorative Arts in Nice. Around this time, he grew closer to the New Realists, with whom he shared the practice of reappropriation. Although he was assembling everyday objects, Raysse distanced himself from the group beginning in 1963 by deciding to use only new objects. His work takes inspiration from childhood as well as from the female body and its accessories (mirror, suntan lotion, lipstick, etc.). Fascinated by consumer society, which had a kind of museum in the store Prisunic, he found the joie de vivre characteristic of his work in promotional displays and advertising imagery. In 1999, though, he withdrew from the art market for several years, rejecting it and beginning an extensive dialogue with art history that would result in very large frescoes which, while referring to the lessons of the old European masters, are resolutely contemporary.

Martial Raysse’s work has been exhibited in the world’s largest art institutions since the 1960s, including the Museum of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna, the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume and the Centre Pompidou National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. His work has been featured in group exhibitions at the Maison Rouge in Paris, the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, the Pinault Foundation’s Palazzo Grassi in Venice, the Shanghai Art Museum, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and the MoMA in New York. In 2014, Martial Raysse’s body of work was the subject of a large-scale retrospective at the Centre Pompidou National Museum of Modern Art in Paris.

Works

Exhibitions & News

Martial Raysse - Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation - © Mennour
Martial Raysse, Nouveau réalisme
11 January — 9 April 2023
Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation, Athens
Le songe d'Ulysse - Fondation Carmignac - © Mennour
Douglas Gordon, Camille Henrot, Martial Raysse, Le songe d’Ulysse
30 April — 16 October 2022
Fondation Carmignac, Porquerolles
Endless Summer - © Mennour
Group show, Endless Summer
6 September — 8 October 2022
Opening 06 September 2022, 18:00
Mennour, 47 rue Saint-André-des-Arts, Paris 6
Martial Raysse - FRAC Auvergne - © Mennour
Martial Raysse, Le noir ne fait pas la nuit
8 July — 23 September 2022
FRAC Auvergne, Halle aux Bleds, Saint-Flour
Martial Raysse - Centre Pompidou - © Mennour
Martial Raysse, Yves Saint Laurent aux musées
29 January — 16 May 2022
Centre Pompidou, Paris
Martial Raysse - SMAK Ghent - © Mennour
Martial Raysse, POP ART | From Warhol to Panamarenko | Collection Matthys-Colle & S.M.A.K.
27 November 2021 — 8 May 2022
S.M.A.K. Ghent
Martial Raysse - Bourse de Commerce - © Mennour
Martial Raysse, Ouverture
22 May 2021 — 30 January 2022
Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection, Paris
Martial Raysse - Château de Blois - © Mennour
Martial Raysse, Made in Japan . La Grande Odalisque
19 May — 22 November 2021
Château de Blois
Martial Raysse - Immanence - © Mennour
Martial Raysse, MIRACLE
23 September — 23 October 2021
Immanence, Paris
Martial Raysse - Fondation Boghossian - © Mennour
Martial Raysse, The Light House
22 October 2020 — 18 April 2021
Fondation Boghossian-Villa Empain, Brussels
Lucas Ratton - Saint Tropez - © Mennour
Marie Bovo, Daniel Buren, David Hominal, Anish Kapoor, Tadashi Kawamata, Bertrand Lavier, Martial Raysse, Art Tribal
4 June — 31 October 2020
Galerie Lucas Ratton, Saint-Tropez
Les Statues ! - © Mennour
Martial Raysse, Les Statues !
24 January — 14 March 2020
Opening 24 January 2020, 18:00
Mennour, 6 rue du Pont de Lodi, Paris 6
The Dessins - © Mennour
Martial Raysse, The Dessins
30 January — 7 March 2020
Opening 29 January 2020, 18:00

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