'Alex Katz: Venice Paintings' in Paris Recent works previously exhibited at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice . (This link opens in a new tab).

By Patrick Javault 

During the last Venice Biennale, Alex Katz presented "Claire, Grass and Water" at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini — three new series painted in 2021 and 2022. From one canal to another, a slightly reduced version of this exhibition is now on view in Pantin, under the title "The Venice Paintings."

Claire refers to Claire McCardell, who, during World War II, revolutionized women’s fashion by inventing ready-to-wear. The idea of painting McCardell’s clothes came to the artist as an obvious choice. Drawing from books and magazines, he painted the dresses either on figures sketched with a single line or as standalone pieces. Fashion perfectly embodies the sense of the present that Katz has always sought to capture. By drawing inspiration from Claire, he infuses it with a hint of the past.

Alongside the pursuit of something new, the Grass and Ocean series also reflect his desire for artistic challenge. Painting grass means giving up a traditional subject, immersing the viewer in a space of yellow or white — subtly nuanced for the former, perfectly neutral for the latter. The brushstrokes depicting blades of grass push the color to its limit, creating a sense of absorption akin to the experience of observing nature from an animal’s perspective.

For the ocean, Katz used enlarged photographs, translating them into accumulations of lines, spots, and white dots on a black background. This time, he steps clearly into the realm of abstract expressionism. Without abandoning his cool, detached style, Alex Katz gives his vision of elemental forces a weight and density that is striking.