A Gérard Garouste retrospective

While in Paris I briefly visited the Centre George Pompidou - it was raining but still raised the spirits to go up the glass enclosed escalators to the top level and see Paris unfold. For an hour or so I explored the retrospective exhibition of artist Gérard Garouste, whose paintings and art I didn’t know until today. Initially slightly disturbed by the colours and off-key, distorted figures, I gradually became more and more absorbed. Garouste paints myths and fables, with a fixation on Don Quixote, Don Juan, Dante, and Greek myth and Christian stories; latterly a long engagement with the ‘Jewish exegetical tradition through intensive study of the Talmud and Midrash’. I appreciated and enjoyed the immense flow and productivity of this artist, powered by concerns that run long and deep. His interest in stories and their origins and variations appealed to me, as did the commitment to ‘research’ (very French) hand in hand with a resistance to scientific certainty. This installation was fascinating – a kind of inner wheel – you could only apprehend one section at a time, by peering through narrow inlets – but I will need to revisit it to understand it better.