Art Paris 2025

Born in Switzerland and a 2021 graduate of the Beaux-Arts de Nantes (France), Jean Gfeller — a resident at the Casa de Velazquez (Madrid, Spain) for the year 2024-2025 — creates micro-fictions in his paintings, staging archetypal characters inspired by marginal individuals, as well as by his own alter egos. Placed in liminal, often labyrinthine spaces where there seems to be no escape, the characters are subjected to oppressive situations that reflect the stakes of domination and the imbalances at play in the human relationships of our contemporary societies.

Using color palettes that are themselves ambiguous — sometimes dull, as if dirtied, other times saturated and vibrant, accentuating the sensation of tension — Jean Gfeller's works encourage viewers to question their own position in society and, by extension, the fragility of their own condition.

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A set of graphic works by Mircea Cantor, centered on an important candle-soot drawing from the series The World Belongs to Those Who Set it on Fire, will also be on show. This powerful depiction of human ambivalence, between destructive and creative power, will be shown alongside drawings in Indian ink on paper produced by the artist during his recent travels. The vivid brushstrokes, inspired by 19th-century Chinese and Japanese Zen painters, allow him to create images of conceptual purity.

We will also be showing recent sculptures from Benjamin Loyauté's Of Meditation and Sculptures de passage series, made out of natural or recycled elements, which question the future of our civilizations while exploring notions such as the common good or cultural heritage.

Finally, our latest edition created with Morgane Tschiember, Skin Poems, will complete the booth. On these marble-like slabs, evoking the crevices of the skin, the artist embosses short poems, like an invitation to the viewer, each phrase resonating with a musical sensuality and offering as many scores as there are works.

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Booth views © Nicolas Brasseur, courtesy Dilecta.