BÉATRICE CASADESUS: Modulations
> DUTKO / Quai Voltaire
Galerie Dutko is pleased to present a new exhibition by the French artist Béatrice Casadesus from September 26 to November 2, 2024. A collection of large, medium, and small-format paintings, as well as drawings and sketchbooks, will be showcased on this occasion. Under the title *Modulations*, this exhibition highlights the artist's dedication to the use of light as a subject in itself, free from any representation.
The exhibition catalog is prefaced by Alice Thomine-Berrada, an art and architecture historian, and general heritage curator at the Beaux-Arts de Paris.
It is about the exploration of intertwined visions and their modulations. Modulations of the immaterial subject, modulation of space, of the colored surface, and its consistency through pointillist treatment. Modulation of color in its relationship to matter. Painting all the modulations through which the painting is constituted, nourished by the sensitivity of the painter.
Like in music, gesture, point, touch, and vibration bring together system and sentiment, which reflect the artist's process in the realm of sensation. The material imprint of the tool serves as the vector of the colored trace. It blends with the dreamed imprint, which emanates from the physical sensations of light. This vision is sometimes associated in Béatrice Casadesus' work with the memory of certain masterpieces in art history: Seurat, Monet, Giotto, Turner, Anna-Eva Bergman, de Staël, Malevitch... Only the emotion she experiences asserts itself as an intimate necessity, hidden beneath the sensitive expanse of painting.
The title alone indicates a thought process. What Matisse called "Confirming my intention."
For the past forty years, Béatrice Casadesus has been dedicated to approaching light as a central element of her pictorial practice. Her pursuit of a modulation of the constitutive elements of the painting has fully taken shape today. *To modulate* is a term Cézanne used to describe his conception of painting. It was later adopted by Elie Faure and Gilles Deleuze. The term is generally associated with music. Theater and music were an integral part of her childhood. The silence of painting is her inner music. The sound of words influences the titles of her works ("Clere voye", "Evanescence", "Persienne", "Violine", etc.).
These modulations reflect the particular relationship the artist maintains with architecture, as illustrated magnificently by the two monumental paintings *Rouge Or* and *Paradis*, installed in the foyer of Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle University at the Nation, built by Christian de Portzamparc.
For this new exhibition at the Dutko gallery, the installation has been conceived as a manifesto of immersion in painting through the interplay of modulations. The studio where these paintings were born, narrow and vertical, encourages layering. The gallery space echoes this.
ABOUT BÉATRICE CASADESUS
Béatrice Casadesus studied painting and sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris in the early 1960s. In 1968, during the school's reform, she participated in the reestablishment of art education in architecture schools. She would go on to become a full professor in "Art and Representation." In 1993-94, she held the position of head of the monumental art studio at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris. The exhibition *Souvenirs de Jeunesse* (Memories of Youth), held at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris (October 15, 2024 - January 12, 2025), will feature two of Béatrice Casadesus' early works.
Béatrice Casadesus' work has been exhibited in numerous institutions, including: the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Le Havre; Bibliothèque nationale, Paris; Centre National d’Art Plastique, Paris; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; Fondation Cartier, Jouy-en Josas; Centre G. Pompidou, Paris; Musée de Poitiers, Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle, Calais; Louvre Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Musée National de Port-Royal des Champs, Magny-les-Hameaux; Cultural Center, Turin, Italy; Maison des Arts de Malakoff; Musée d’Art Contemporain de Dunkerque; Musée du Donjon, Niort; Arsenal Museum in Soissons; French Institute of Barcelona, Spain; Centre Noroît, Arras; Royal Monastery of Brou, Bourg-en-Bresse. Her works are held in major collections, such as those of the City of Lille; FNAC, Paris; Bibliothèque nationale, Paris; Media Library of Issy-les-Moulineaux; Soissons Museum; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Manufacture des Gobelins, Paris. They are also part of numerous private collections in France, Japan, Mexico, Australia, Spain, England, the United States, Belgium, etc. Her works have been shown in many salons, including FIAC, Art Paris, The Salon New York, PAD London, BRAFA Brussels, PAD Paris.
