aixcentric

This is Philippe Favier whose exhibition Corpuscles is currently at the Musée Granet.

Last week I joined a tour guided by curator Bruno Ely which was very instructive since I’d visited previouslyand not really made much sense of it!

Favier works in series.  The first gallery has miniscule paintings done with an incredibly fine brush and cut out with a fine blade before being mounted on large white panels. Ely explained that they were done in the 80s when most artists were producing very large colourful works.  The picture (left) shows the installation on the gallery staircase – lots of round frames with tiny images – then you move up to a wall filled with pictures embedded in 28 old school writing slates.

And on we went to another room full of sinuous abstracts which, we were told, were all based on the cedilla (ç) and cut out of photo-album paper.  As in many of his pictures, tiny words were cut out and glued into the image.

Ely told us that Favier was the child of haberdashers, hence the buttons, pins and glass display cabinets used throughout.

Some of the series were quite striking, quite pleasing in places……but didn’t communicate much to me at all.  The curator who knows and obviously likes the artist explained why bits here were witty and bits there were autobiographical – but should we really need an interpreter?

Much more to my liking is the stunning little self-portrait by Rembrandt in the basement. What a jewel tucked away!

Admission to the museum is free this coming Sunday – but it’s normally only 4€. I would suggest trying to get on a tour if you are going to get to grips with Corpuscles!  www.museegranet-aixenprovence.fr.