Gérard Garouste, 'Contes ineffables'

Gérard Garouste's work finds its own way between figurative painting and dreamy mythological and literary imagery. With this exhibition, the great admirer of Duchamp and Picasso calls on the likes of Faust, Golem and Don Quixote to tell stories about the torments of men – and, by extension, about himself, as his dreamy, even grotesque compositions are often self-portraits. And when it’s not literature, it’s language that Garouste deforms, amusing himself by creating large scale allegories of humanity in oils. Topped off with a few sculptures, the exhibition at the Daniel Templon gallery brings together the recent work of an artist who started out painting the stage sets for his director friend Jean-Michel Ribes during the 1970s.