Robert Combas

Mixed media on 210g paper print

H.74 x W.60,8 cm

H.89,5 x W.76 cm (with frame)

Bio

1957 Birth in Lyon.

1979 He creates with Ketty Brindel and Richard (known as Buddy) Di Rosa the rock group Les Démodés, to the primitive sound and the dadaist texts, and whose Libération will then be echoed.

1980 He is spotted by Bernard Ceysson, who proposes him to participate in the exhibition "After Classicism", the very first of his career as an artist. First solo exhibition abroad: "Objekte und Bilder", at the Eva Keppel Gallery in Düsseldorf. An exhibition entitled "2 Sétois à Nice" brings together Robert Combas and Hervé Di Rosa at Ben Vautier's gallery. The latter then presents them as the leaders of a return to figurative painting, a movement that he will call ". la Figuration libre (the Free Figuration) ».

1983 First solo exhibition in New York, in the gallery of the great American art dealer Leo Castelli.

1984 The exhibition "5/5: Figuration libre France/USA", at the Musée d'Art moderne de la ville de Paris, shows the plastic and cultural affinities between the painters of the Figuration Libre, and American graffiti artists (Basquiat, Crash, Haring, Scharf).

1990 An exhibition at the Wolf Schulz Gallery in San Francisco shows for the first time the artist's newly explored style of "coulours". At the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in Albi, "Combas-Toulouse-Lautrec" confirms his formal evolution and his interest in the spiritual.

1993 Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art of the city of Paris.

2000 Exhibition "Marilyn Combas", in which he appropriates the icon of the 20th century.

2010 He creates with Lucas Mancione the group Les Sans Pattes.

2012 Retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon: "Greatest Hits, you start at the beginning, you finish at the end".

Libération 2016

Une révolution de l'horreur (A revolution of horror)

By Robert Combas (1957, France)

The essential, I said it by my painting, by the title of the work (" Une révolution de l’horreur "), with my language. What would be the point of saying more? I don't have the desire or the language to philosophize or develop a political or geopolitical analysis. Battles are a recurring theme in my work. I have painted dozens of them. But we are at war, that's what we've been told. For the rest, in what I have painted and written are the answers to your questions". A revolution of horror (Text taken from the front page of Robert Combas)".Decisions with serious consequences. Finding oneself in oneself and feeling a sense of real compassion is not something that is given to everyone. A revolution on oneself to res- feel at an unspecified moment in time, to feel the true sadness of this day that brings misfortune by our traditions. To feel the misfortune of this place.»

(Inscribed in the painting)

"Friday the 13th the end of the world

SCARED it's scary

it shoots in all directions

We don't know what's going on.

We don't know where we are

We don't know what we're doing

We're waiting for it to pass

Ready for sulphation

Decisions with serious consequences."

EN