BERTHET-AITTOUARES

Henri Michaux's drawings have been with us for 25 years, like a precious companion. The last exhibition we organised in 2018, ‘Le dessin est exorcisme’, was accompanied by a text by Pierre Wat.

For Drawing Now, we are presenting an exhibition devoted mainly to inks, drawings from the 1960s that straddle the boundary between writing and informal art, and which owe much to the painter-poet's encounter with Zao Wou-Ki, the man who introduced him to Chinese painting, its inner world and the tools that foster deep, adventurous reverie.

Initially a writer, Michaux gradually freed writing from its descriptive function to express what he called ‘the space within’. Our selection of works by this singular artist, who, like no other, reinvented the relationship between writing and drawing, retraces this journey into himself, at the risk of encountering abysses from which a different, unknown knowledge will emerge. He said: ‘I write to explore myself. Painting, composing, writing: to explore myself. That is the adventure of being alive. 

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)