The Galerie du 10 of the Instituto Francés in Madrid opens next Friday, November 14 at 7 pm the new exhibition Welcome to the Circus, by Baptiste Laurent. Free event with prior reservation at this link.
This exhibition, which will be open to the public until next 13 February, brings together the last artistic project of Baptiste Laurent (1980, Nantes), who reveals the tragedy imposed at the end of the celebration of international order. War and national identity are the protagonists here. Through the metaphor of the circus, the artist caricatures the society of the spectacle, turning culture and politics into a carnival. It legitimizes the popular while seeking a plastic and intellectual ideal capable of expressing the highest human emotions and feelings, in resonance with the mythology of sleep.
By linking his work with the world of his childhood, he reinvents myths to explore an unnamed idea where masks impose a dramatic feeling on history and where dreams of glory are betrayed.
By mixing opposing elements, he weaves ties between his intimate world and the contemporary world through symbolic figuration, forms, drawing, vivid colors, humor, grotesque and reappropriation of his imaginary universe. Baptiste Laurent paints as you wish. His painting transgresses the classical order of transcendental representation by redefining norms, oscillating between sadness and joy, while awakening the viewer’s empathy.
Baptiste Laurent is a visual artist living in Spain since 2007, who has developed his artistic career as an autodidact between Madrid and Paris. He has exhibited in many artistic and cultural institutions in Spain and France. His traditional medium is painting, although he also works in sculpture and investigates projects with a strong literary, social and anthropological component. He is an anti-academic and eclectic artist who enjoys the syncretism of pictorial styles, oscillating between neo-figurative narrative, graphic painting, symbolism and expressionism.