Jean-Michel GNIDZAZ

Gnidzaz was born in 1947 in Toulouse.

Jean-Michel Gnidzaz is best known for his two- and three-dimensional abstract compositions that marked his work in the 1990s.

Using collage and folding techniques with unique sheets of paper, rigorous geometric arrangements of directly effective color contrasts, the artist was reviving a kinetic approach to a rather unspectacular fashion tradition.

Jean-Michel Gnidzaz thus inspired the conceptual essence of Soto's work rather than their tendency towards gigantism, and rejected the sanitized accuracy of other painters of the kinetic movement in favor of a personal touch restoring a gesture essential to a certain performativity of painting.

Through his research, Jean-Michel Gnidzaz has been able to produce a powerful body of work, capable of standing out with impertinence from the leading figures who marked his training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse and the beginnings of his artistic career.

After a decade of exploring geometric compositions, Jean-Michel Gnidzaz has now broken with pure abstraction and embarked on a new direction in his work. Since 2003, he has initiated a new series of portraits dedicated to 20th-century cultural icons.

Struck by the persistence in the collective unconscious of certain images or photographs of great cultural figures of the 20th century, in particular those confronted with a rebellion synonymous with the established order, Jean-Michel Gnidzaz questions here their iconic status.

By neutralizing the background of the original photograph, recomposing the portrait from two sets of trichromatic colors, flat areas and alternating colored bands reintroducing a certain kinetic quality, he deprives these early photographs of a contemporary history of too immediate identification.

So apart from a moment of consensus, respect was agreed that their reserves generally these popular idols found a certain capacity to insult the viewer.

The process grows to take a rapid historical perspective to evolve our questions: what would the beades, James Dean, or even Coluche mean today in our society; what place do they occupy in the minds of future generations; do they escape the decorative status to which the commercial exploitation of their image has relegated them? No, not yet the answer, but Jean-Michel Gnidzaz's work wisely questions.

This new series of portraits, and the flood of questions it raises, marks a new stage in his artistic career and makes us curious about future developments.