Cy Twombly, Walter Stöhrer et László Lakner

“Écriture et Poésie : le geste maîtrisé” As part of the prestigious retrospective devoted to Cy Twombly at the Centre Pompidou, Galerie Charron is privileged to present seven lithographs by the artist, taken from the portfolio “Six Latin Writers and Poets”, created in 1975 and published in 1976. With this exhibition entitled “Écriture et poésie, le geste maîtrisé” (Writing and poetry, the mastered gesture), Galerie Charron proposes a questioning around the sign, the line and the word, through the approaches of Cy Twombly, Walter Stöhrer and László Lakner, three poets of painting from the second half of the 20th century. With this portfolio, Cy Twombly pays homage to the Ancients through references to ancient literature. Testifying to the artist’s passion for mythological resources, he draws a skilful blend between the elaboration of writing and the inspiration of myth, bringing out the six names of these Latin poets and writers. At times clear and confident, at other times more tormented, with superimposed writing, this style is not unlike the work of László Lakner and Walter Stöhrer. The work of these artists is a constant reflection on the tension between abstraction and figuration. It also imposes the gesture as a new form of writing, always with lyricism at the origin. Far from its initial informative aspect, the word then appears as a space of plastic freedom and is at the heart of the spatial composition of the work. Faced with these paintings, the viewer finds himself in a condition where affect takes precedence and can let his imagination run free when confronted with the word and what it evokes. Walter Stöhrer, whose technique is reminiscent of Cy Twombly’s early work, breathes his poetry into a voluptuous and eventful painting, where incomplete figures mingle with an alphabet to form his “Malerei und Grafik” (Painting and Graphics). László Lakner’s “Schopenhauer”, for whom the gesture of writing is fundamental – and often monumental – is a sketch of a letter, made up of writing combined with a very particular spatial composition. The exhibition “Writing and Poetry: the mastered gesture” presents the encounter of this new writing with the pictorial: the grapheme, at the origin of painting, drawing and writing, is nothing more than a sign. The complex spaces, cleverly composed while leaving room for spontaneity, combine raw linearity, figures and explosions of colour, revealing the full expressiveness of these revolutionary artists as they flow by.