Americans in Paris: Exhibition Review
“The Big Disconnect”
Tussle Magazine, June 9, 2024

by Gwenaël Kerlidou

Earlier this winter, several galleries have presented the work of a few French painters who have recently elicited interest in the New York art world. Among them, in January, the Timothy Taylor Gallery showed works by Simon Hantaï in Tribeca, while in Chelsea, in March, the Matthew Marks Gallery exhibited a series by Martin Barré and the Templon Gallery presented a survey of Claude Viallat’s paintings.

What these shows had in common, besides displaying work produced in France between the nineteen sixties and now, was the fact that they all seemed somewhat difficult to approach for an American public, who, if interested by what they saw, seemed to labor in trying to locate them in their historical narrative. One good example of this was David Carrier’s review of the Timothy Taylor show in Two Coats of Paint, drawing tentative parallels between Hantaï and Morris Louis.

Concurrently with these shows “Americans in Paris, 1946-1962”, opened at the Grey Art Museum in early March: An ambitious historical survey intended to re-examine a period, right after the end of World War Two, when, with the benefit of the new GI Bill, many young American artists, musicians, and writers flocked to Paris to immerse themselves in its mythical scene of Modernity.

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