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Photo: Louis MatrayEspace Meyer Zafra is very pleased to introduce you to its first ever group exhibition devoted to figurative painting, entitled Orchestrateurs d’images. From January 23 to March 6, 2025, this exhibition will bring together the duo Muntean & Rosenblum, Maxime Biou, Sarah Maison and Claire Fahys.
Orchestrateurs d’images explores the multiple methods used by these artists to exploit various images, whether visual, mental or historical. Within their works, they bring together and harmonize all the means available, such as photography, mental image, real scenes, art history or popular media.
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Photo: Louis Matray
MUNTEAN AND ROSENBLUM
Austria / Israel. B. 1962Large-scale painting is one of the core aspects of their practice. However, they often expand their work by creating large installations with sculptural elements where performances are staged or films screened. In addition, they make drawings as well as collages with texts and photographs.
In their work, Muntean/Rosenblum mix references to art history and present-day popular culture. They mostly depict groups of apparently lethargic or melancholic young people in idle situations, which are either ordinary and everyday or mysterious and ambiguous. The often-dreamy scenes take place in rooms, public spaces or landscapes as if part of a film, presenting unresolved situations in the making. The characters seem to adopt postures copied from fashion magazines, or from paintings originating from the renaissance to the nineteenth century. Their work is frequently accompanied by captions or texts not-directly relating to the depicted scene, adding another layer of complexity. The artists themselves described their work as ‘precise ambiguity’. By playing with visual codes from the past and the present, Muntean/Rosenblum scrutinise the power of images and how these constitute an overwhelming collective memory.
Their work is included in the most prestigious public collections, such as MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, New York / Albertina, Vienna, Austria / Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna (MAK), Vienna, Austria / MUMOK, Museum of Modern Art Foundation Ludwig Vienna, Vienna / Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria / Neue Galeri, Graz, Austria / Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien|Sammlung BA-CA, Vienna / Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig, Germany / Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany / Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel / MOCAK, Museum of Contemporary Art Krakau, Poland / MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemoráneo de Castilla y Léon, Léon, Spain / Zabludowicz Collection, London, New York / Susan and Michael Hort, New York / Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, Miami / Rubell Family Collection, Miami / Dicke Collection, Ohio / The Progressive Art Collection, Ohio / Burger Collection, Hong Kong / Belvedere 21er Haus, Vienna, Austria / ARCO Foundation, Madrid, Spain / Coleccion Inelcom Arte Contemporaneo, Madrid, Spain
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Photo: Louis Matray
Maxime Biou
France / B. 1993Maxime Biou graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied for five years in François Boisrond’s studio. He began painting shortly before enrolling at the École, initially working almost exclusively from life, using his friends and everyday elements as models. It was only later that he incorporated photographic references into his creative process, granting him greater freedom.A painter of spontaneity, Maxime Biou acts as a witness to the moments he captures. The narratives in his paintings are more implied than explicitly stated. The key lies in the relationship that forms between the viewer and what the work, its treatment, and its material evoke. Thus, Maxime Biou does not impose interpretation on the viewer; instead, he allows ample space for it to develop and take root.His work has received numerous awards: the Diamond Grant, the Friends of the Beaux-Arts Prize/Bertrand de Demandolx Prize, the Yishu 8 Prize, the Fénéon Artistic Prize, and the Encouragement Prize in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts. Recently, his work has been featured in several group exhibitions, including the 2019 show of the laureates of the Emerige Revelation Grant – L’effet falaise – after which the National Museum of the History of Immigration acquired his painting Les naufragés for its permanent collection. In 2021-2022, Maxime was an artist-in-residence at the Casa de Velázquez, Académie de France in Madrid. In late 2023, he was in residence at the Beijing House of Arts, invited by Yishu8. -
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Photo: Louis Matray
Claire Fahys
France / B. 1984Claire Fahys (b. 1984, France) lives and works in Paris. After studying at the Ateliers de Sèvres in Paris, she completed a BA in Graphic Design at Central Saint Martins, London (2007). A largely self-taught artist, Fahys developed her distinctive oil painting practice while living in London and later Berlin, where the German figurative tradition and the vibrant local art scene had a significant impact on her work. Exposure to the work of German, Danish, and English artists further shaped her evolving artistic vision. Fahys has participated in several residencies in Mexico City, Oficina de Arte (2014, 2016) and most recently, Lagos (2024).Her solo exhibitions include Cosmos curated by Marion Guggenheim and Catherine Geysen, Viento Solar at Pipeline Gallery, London (2024); Les Mains Libres, curated by Tatiana Roth, London (2023); and Rodéo, Galerie Hussenot, Paris (2022). Recent group exhibitions include Body Symphonies, curated by Marion Guggenheim and Nicolas Dewavrin (Paris, 2024); Tempo, Better Go South Gallery (Berlin, 2023); The Power to Dream, Galerie Hussenot (Paris, 2023); and Chambre à Part, curated by Pierre Allizan and Laurence Dreyfus (Brussels, 2023). Fahys' work has been featured in FAD Magazine (2023–2024), Whitewall Magazine (2024), It’s Nice That (2022), and Le Quotidien de l’Art (2022). -
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Photo: Louis Matray
Sarah Maison
France / B. 1990The work of Sarah Maison Bortuzzo (b. 1990, Paris) questions the body in its materiality, in relation to the environment that surrounds it.Through intertwining colors on the canvas the artist creates spaces for her figures to inhabit: these undefined, timeless places are decluttered from narrative elements. Interested rather by the interiority of her characters, the artist establishes a perpetual dialogue between figuration and abstraction seeking more "to make people feel, rather than to describe, what happens when we let ourselves be inhabited by the world and how the world composes us from the inside". The boundaries between space and figure are gradually dissolved, the color is internalised, becoming a reflection of spirituality, the figure, stripped of space time attributes, becomes an archetype.Maison portrays herself in almost all of her paintings. She often decides to be accompanied by another character, who, however, is there as a function of her, to act as her counterpart and allow her to escape from herself when, overwhelmed by her own presence, she feels the need to find new forms of representation. Femininity takes on new attributes and the woman, in becoming a mother, emancipates herself through the act of creating life. -
Photo: Louis Matray
Orchestrateurs d'Images: Muntean & Rosenblum, Maxime Biou, Sarah Maison, Claire Fahys
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