Dominique De Beir Gilgian Gelzer Frederique Lucien Pierre Mabille Philippe Richard

Off the Wall is an exhibition of installations by five European artists based in Paris. Each artist is engaged in a singular artistic adventure questioning the relationship between art and space. These artists use commonplace materials such as cardboard, wood, canvas, paper, or direct interaction with the walls. Dominique De Beir repeats, Gilgian Gelzer draws, Frédérique Lucien cuts, Pierre Mabille lists, Philippe Richard builds. Invited to propose an exhibition, the five artists conceived an ensemble of site-specific works to engage the full gallery and totally use the spatial possibilities.

For several of them, it is the very first time their work has been exhibited in New York. Dominique De Beir Gilgian Gelzer

Dominique De Beir uses unusual tools to cover paper supports with perforations. She pursues the vital energy of her creative process and impulsive acts without constraints until the surface itself disappears for the benefit of its own depth. By the repetitive and relentless character of her actions, the artist gives to her work a ritual and choreographic dimension. Her work has been exhibited in France, the Netherlands, Italy, Great Britain, and Germany, and her works are included in a number of public and private European collections. The Museum am Oswalt in Dortmund, Germany presented her first major solo museum exhibition in 2000. Dominique De Beir was born in 1964 in France.

Gilgian Gelzer makes paintings, drawings, and photographs that explore the way that each medium describes and occupies space. He has also developed a practice of large-scale wall drawing reacting directly to the characteristics of a particular environment. He has been exhibiting his work in galleries and museums across Europe since 1985; his most recent museum exhibition was at the Ludwig Museum in Koblenz, Germany. This past summer he executed a wall drawing in graphite and chalk for L’Art Dans Les Chapelles, an annual project in Brittany in which artists are invited to make site-specific work. A selection of his drawings is included in the curated artist registry of the Drawing Center in New York. Gilgian Gelzer was born in 1951 in Switzerland.

Frédérique Lucien Pierre Mabille Philippe Richard

Frédérique Lucien concentrates on the practice of drawing. She bases her work on line, surface, and the observation of organic shapes. Her most recent work relies on strong contours and the juxtaposition of positive and negative shapes. Early in her development, Frédérique Lucien was awarded a residency at the Villa Medicis in Rome in 1991. Lennon, Weinberg featured her work in a three-person exhibition in 1991 and in two group shows in 1993 and 1995. More recently, her first retrospective at the Gravelines Museum surveyed her drawings and prints made between 1985 and 2002. Her works have been seen in many different cities, such as Rotterdam, Paris, Rome, Graz and Budapest, and are included in many public and private collections. Her most recent exhibition took place at Galerie Jean Fournier in Paris in October 2008 in which she presented large pieces of canvas where the drawing is made by cutting of the surface. She was born in France in 1960.

Since 1998, Pierre Mabille has made paintings in which he repeats the same shape again and again. The variety and the richness of the possible combination, connected with a playful and precise research gives his works a strong visual impact. He works on paper, canvas and directly upon the wall. He also develops a “collection” of images and words, which suggest that the chosen shape be perceived in many different ways. Since 2007, his murals and paintings have been exhibited at the Galerie Jean Fournier in Paris, and at the Matisse Museum, where he paid homage to Matisse in the form of a large ephemeral stained glass incorporating Mabille’s shapes. In 2007, he was among the six curators who invited artists in Nantes for a show called More Reality, an exhibition connected with new practices around abstraction. Pierre Mabille was born in France in 1958.

For many years, Philippe Richard has developed his work with some specific ideas about space, and how to invest it. His works are made of overflowings, of proliferating elements such as painted lengths of wood that project a hybrid of painting and sculpture into the space of the exhibition and onto its walls. In 2000, the art museum in Tourcoing presented his first retrospective. Philippe Richard has exhibited widely in Europe, particularly in Germany and Italy as well as cities such as Brussels and Vienna. In New York, he has been included in a group show at Cheim and Read Gallery Small Paintings in 1999. In 2006, he presented his first solo show in the United States at the Laumeier Sculpture Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, where he has built a large installation in their park. Philippe Richard will be included in a group exhibition at the Pinecothequa in San Paulo, Brazil in September 2009.

He is represented in Europe by the Galerie Bernard Jordan, based in Paris and Zurich. He was born in France in 1962.