Daniel Pommereulle: Je traverse, et nous restons...

« Drawing is the basis of everything »
Alberto Giacometti

« A desire to find a solution between things full and calm and sharp and violent »
Alberto Giacometti, Letters to Pierre Matisse, 1947


Daniel Pommereulle (1937 - 2003) crossed the 20th century like lightening. Known today for his blade sculptures, he has been, often simultaneously, a painter, a performer, a filmmaker, an actor, a sculptor, a poet and a sketch artist. A mythical figure of the 1960?s Saint-Germain des Prés, he mingled very early on with the main protagonists of the european artistic scene. With Alain Jouffroy and Jean-Jacques Lebel, he meets with the Surrealists André Breton, Max Ernst or Roberto Matta. With Erro, he leaves at age 24 for Italy and takes part in « L?Anti-Procès » (The Anti-Trial) in Milan, a radical manifestation organized in reaction to the Algerian War, from which he has just returned. Very active during May 68, he creates with painter Olivier Mosset and film directors Serge Bard, Jackie Raynal and Philippe Garrel the production group Zanzibar, in the total freedom of the May Spirit, greatly affected by Jean-Luc Godard, with whom he collaborated in 1967 on the film Weekend . That same year, La Collectionneuse (The Collector), that Pommereulle co-wrote with Eric Rohmer, is released. He is seen manipulating the famous little empty yellow paint pot striped with razor blades - Objet hors-saisie (Object out of reach) currently on display in the Centre Pompidou?s permanent collection exhibit.

Excerpt form the press release written by Armance Léger