Ancora una volta Kate Hiley ci guida alla scoperta della scena artistica più giovane all’estero: dopo Londra, andiamo a Parigi, a scoprire soprattutto gli artisti dello spazio de Le Cabinet Dentaire.

I arrived in Paris at 18 years of age, wide eyed and impressionable, at the beginning of my journey as a painter. I had dreamt of it’s streets bathed in sunlight, of museums bursting at the seams with French masters, of sitting with my fellow artists at small café tables, heatedly debating the art world over glasses of wine. I still remember my very first visit to Magasin Senellier with it’s wood panelled interior, filled to the brim with every art supply imaginable. I remember gazing longingly at the shelves behind the vendor in her crisp white coat where bottles of pigment sat in colour coordinated harmony, lined up like sweets in an old fashioned candy shop. Eight years later it’s still my favourite place in Paris, its walls saturated with the history of every great artist that ever stepped through its doors. I think this kind of romanticism is why painters keep coming back to the city, not just for the paintings it hosts, but for the everyday life a Parisian painter lives.

When I left the familiar environment of the London Art Schools after a year, to pursue my painting studies in Paris, I was warned by anyone and everyone that it was a bad idea, “you won’t be able to afford it!”. This was back in the day when studying in the UK was almost free. The Academy would only accept students who spoke fluent French, so I went in search of an English speaking art school that was willing to take me on. I stumbled across Paris College of Art, an American University with beautiful studios and intimate class sizes. The perfect antidote to my experience in London. Once I’d managed to secure a place and the financial aid to get me through a 3 year degree, I never looked back. This decision to move to a small International school, already a foreigner itself as an American institution in France, took me into an environment outside of the approved system. The world became a much smaller place and the networks I built would spread across borders and oceans.  As I would find out later on, this unique university experience was the polar opposite of the art world that would greet me in Paris upon my graduation.

During my time at university in Paris I shared my studio with artists from Canada, Turkey,  Germany, America and Brazil. The Brazilian in question was Sandra Fujii, a painter from Sao Paulo who had arrived in Paris via San Diego. We shared a love not just of painting, but of taking risks and making un-fashionable work. Somehow, being out of our home countries made it easier to make mistakes and to get involved in the history of painting, without the shame or taboo usually attached. Sandra would go on to become both a close friend and a colleague, and our mutual opinions of painting developed even after I moved back to London three years ago. We would spend hours exploring the depths of the Musée d’Orsay and the Louvre, analysing Delacroix’s palette, Manet’s brush marks and Courbet’s draughtsmanship. Our professors would take us each month to the new commercial gallery openings, a chance to see mid career artists in intimate spaces. It was exciting and it seemed like an achievable goal for us at the time. This was where we would be a few years after graduating, of course. As most art students will attest, art school gives you lots of time to paint and little advice about the realities of being an artist in a commercial world.

When we graduated in 2010, most of our group went back home or over to America whilst myself and Sandra remained in Paris, ready to try and make our way as professional painters. We were realistic and we worked hard, setting up our studio spaces straight away and visiting every show and private view available. We met more painters and built up our network. The romance of being a painting student in Paris, however, was quickly replaced with the reality of being a painter in Paris. Long gone were the days of Ambroise Vollard, Paul Durand-Ruel or Leo and Gertrude Stein. Le Bateau Lavoir was now a tourist hot spot and the gates to La Ruche remained closed and overgrown with Ivy. Montparnasse had been erased and in it’s place a huge tower of commercialism erected as if to say, the art scene here is dead. This was the home of the Cubists and the Salon de Refusés, the home of renegade artists, where had they all gone?

The more we looked, the more we found that in order to be a commercially successful painter there was now a system, a system that was almost impossible to penetrate. Whilst the history of painting was revered in Paris, the new painter was somewhat ignored and in the wake of the financial crisis most galleries were favouring installation art and ephemeral pieces over anything that could be seen as traditional. We dreamed of having our own gallery space where we could show the art we felt was relevant and make exhibitions that we ourselves would want to see. It wasn’t just Paris that was experiencing these issues, all major cities went through the same cycle where galleries needed to sell and arts funding was thinning out.

One way in which artists and curators in Paris started to retaliate was to put on shows in their homes. Apartments were transformed into exhibition spaces, not just for painting but for installations, sculpture and video works. It was our way of giving our work the chance to breath outside of the studio. When I left for London in 2012, I could see artist run projects and associations popping up throughout the city. Despite the lack of space, and strict laws on using the ones available, progress was starting to be made. Non governmental organisations were being set up to provide creative and commercial support to artists, like the Kadist Art Foundation, a non for profit organisation with branches in Paris and San Francisco. One such group was Mad Agency, set up in 2010, with locations in Paris, Morocco and LA, each one offering both studio and exhibition spaces. It is a perfect example of what I felt was greatly needed in Paris; an organisation focused on supporting new artists and providing international connections at the same time. Artists had begun setting up their own spaces such as Glassbox, the vision of a group of students from the Academy, and Exo Exo, founded by an artist and curator ensemble. Room E-10 27 is another good example of Paris’s artist run initiatives. A project space conceived and curated by Thomas Butler from his apartment in the Goutte d’Or district of Paris. Thomas’s intention was to establish a space that allowed new artists to be exposed and exchanges to be created within an intimate setting. These new and exciting initiatives are changing the face of contemporary art in Paris and bringing new life to it’s art scene.

Each time I came back to Paris, myself and Sandra would squeeze in as many gallery visits as possible, searching out new spaces like these and looking for inspiration. Our romantic attachment to Paris was still very present and we wanted to see the city full of painters once again. As luck would have it, a space became available to us last year, a 1930’s building inspired by the architecture of Robert Mallet-Stevens. We named the space Le Cabinet Dentaire, after it’s previous usage as a dental surgery. Sandra used the space as her studio whilst we took out mezzanine floors, removed shelves and re-painted walls. It took a few months to get it exhibition ready and as of this May we have begun a program of shows dedicated to exposing and working with contemporary painters. It’s one of very few artist run spaces in Paris dedicated solely to painting and we hope it can inspire more people to start similar projects should the opportunity arise. It’s not easy and we do all of the work ourselves from designing invitations to hanging shows to promoting the events, but it gives us total control and freedom. It allows us to make use of our international networks, bringing in painters from London, Italy, Spain, America, Brazil and hopefully many more over the next few months. It’s the kind of space that I would have wanted to see when I was a graduate.

Our next exhibition at Le Cabinet Dentaire, Confuses Paroles, brings together a select group of painters from the UK. The show includes works by Ralph Hunter-Menzies, Shaun McDowell, Michael Lawton and Bobby Dowler. Of the four painters, Dowler is currently living and working in Paris at La Sira, whilst the others are all based in the UK. The intention is not just to show a group of really great paintings, that is always the goal, but to introduce new groups of artists to Paris from totally different art scenes. We want to increase the exposure of art students and collectors alike to painting in it’s purest form and to painting from all corners of the world. The UK might not be far away geographically, but the cultural and painting histories of the two countries are worlds apart. In a city with such a wealth of history of art and art movements, it’s been far too long since Paris has been at the forefront of painting and contemporary art. Not the work we see in Art Fairs such as Art Paris or FIAC, but art that is unheard of, unfashionable and sometimes even unsellable. The kind of work that artists want to see. It’s always a great time to be an art student in Paris, but now it’s a great time to be an artist in Paris too.

Confuses Paroles is open at Le Cabinet Dentaire from 4^th of July 2015 –  10^th July 2015.

The Private View is on Friday 3^rd of July from 19h – 22h.

Opening hours are: 4^th – 5^th July, 12h – 17h   and  6^th – 10^th July by appointment only.

Email lecabinetdentaireparis@gmail.com for appointments.

Foto: The entrance to Le Cabinet Dentaire, an artist run space directed by Kate Hiley and Sandra Fujii. Painting by Sandra Fujii.