EXPLOSION FIXE
Inspired by the final explosion scene in Michelangelo Antonioni's famous film Zabriskie Point, Léonard Martin's suite of the same name, presented at Galerie Templon's Brussels space, presents us with a topsy-turvy universe evoking the constant flow of images in our world in the grip of the cloud. Enough to make us want to break free?

The multicolored clothes of a wardrobe, the victuals of a refrigerator, a television set, the books of a library... all filmed in slow motion to a background of psychedelic music (by Pink Floyd): the mythical final scene of Michelangelo Antonioni's famous 1970 film Zabriskie Point must be seen again to appreciate Léonard Martin's homonymous sequel.

A series of brightly colored oil and acrylic paintings with no vanishing point - as is necessary to convey the impression of fl ottement... "To look at the explosion of objects at Zabriskie Point is to wonder about the fallout and the wake left by the history of one generation on the next. To look at the explosion of objects in Zabriskie Point is to wonder about the fallout and wake left by the history of one generation on the next ", explains the artist born in 1991, a graduate of the Beaux-Arts de Paris and Le Fresnoy, who has been engaged in a dialogue between painting and cinema since his residency at Villa Médicis in 2019. " What paths can be forged in the abandoned dreams of our elders? " he asks, noting, " These objects, I seize them on the fly. Where film stops like a point of no return, my paintings imagine possible sequels. "

SATURATION

What could be next in this mess of signs and automaton-like fi gurines (the multimedia artist, who combines painting, sculpture and video, creates puppets and automata to stage themes from literature and art history)? Transposing the cloud of levitating objects in Antonioni's film onto the flat surface of the canvas, Suite Zabriskie inevitably evokes, through the saturation of signs, "the constant flow of images, texts and sounds that now occupy our daily lives and sometimes blur our vision ". For Léonard Martin, in fact, " painting perhaps allows images to fall, to rain down the cloud
that hangs over our heads ".

With its plunging perspective reminiscent of emaki - the Chinese, Japanese or Korean illuminated scrolls that prefigure cinema - his paintings "prevent the eye from freezing". A fragmented aesthetic that puts our gaze to the test. There's no rest here; we're in the whirlwind of history and memory. Indeed, the artist asks: " How can we put the pieces of history back together? Where should we look and listen? My paintings don't take stock. They draw lines from one memory to another, seeking to repopulate the desert over which Antonioni's lovers fly.

LÉONARD MARTIN - SUITE ZABRISKIE "
GALERIE TEMPLON
VEYDTSTRAAT 13A, BRUXELLES (BELGIUM)
UNTIL FEBRUARY 24 2024
TEMPLON.COM