David Lynch
This week the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris opens the first exhibition devoted to the filmmaker David Lynch. 'The Air is on Fire' includes paintings, photographs, drawings, alternative films and sound production, most of which have never been available to the public. The aim of the exhibition is to convey the scope of Lynch's artistic creation and to offer a fascinating glimpse into his adolescent fantasies and adult preoccupations. It will be installed in an environment designed by him and complemented by a programme of events, including live performances and concerts created by Lynch.
Born in Montana in 1946, David Lynch spent most of his childhood sketching and painting. He went on to study fine arts at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 1965, where his passion for the moving image was stirred: working alone in his studio, he saw a soft wind gently move the found objects on the painting before him, and six months later, his first experimental short film was completed. This gave birth to one of the world's most treasured filmmakers, and the youngest director to receive the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for lifetime achievement, awarded in September 2006 after the premiere of his new film, INLAND EMPIRE (2006). Throughout his career, Lynch has actively continued painting, photographing, and drawing, and has even broadened his artistic practice to include animation, music composition and sound production.
'The Air is on Fire' has evolved from David Lynch's studio full of paintings, cupboards of black archival boxes and shelves of labelled binders containing countless drawings. This well-conserved auto-collection of art dates back to his high school days and, until now, has primarily remained out of sight. These works have been reassembled at the Fondation Cartier in distinctive environments conceived by Lynch, along with soundscapes, fantastical spaces filled with large-scale curtained porticos, and a mini movie theatre.
The recurring theme of the home, complete with its potentially sinister underbelly, is represented in dark paintings complete with cryptic messages and organic textures. Lynch's outrageous sense of humour is also present in the difficult issues his paintings tackle, echoing the cutting comic relief found in even his most disconcerting film work. Nudes studies feature women with typical Lynchian characteristics like red painted lips and nails and alluringly glamorous attitudes. Photographs of industrial areas treat sewage pipes, bridges, and deserted factories with as much care as nude models, filling remote landscapes with sensibility and importance.
A major publication in both English and French will accompany the exhibition, featuring a conversation between Andrei Ujica, filmmaker and film historian, and Boris Groys, art historian, philosopher and theorist, as well as numerous reproductions of Lynch's fine art and film work.
David Lynch: The Air is on Fire
3 March - 27 May
Fondation cartier pour l'art contemporain
Paris
www.fondation.cartier.com
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