« L’âge du trait », Paris
« L’âge du trait »
with Aysha E Arar, Noémie Bablet, Paul Becker, Sylvano Bussotti, Miriam Cahn, Jean Cocteau, Ezio Gribaudo, HaYoung, Valentine Hugo, Dada Khanyisa, Lucile Littot, Sophie Lloyd, Mel Odom, Liselor Perez, David Rappeneau, Jessy Razafimandimby, Jean Souverbie, Wei Libo
Bringing together eighteen artists from different generations and contexts, L’âge du trait gathers a group of works on paper that examine portraiture through the multiplicity of its forms. As a medium of immediacy and intimacy, paper records the swiftness of a gesture, the economy of a line, the density of a gaze. It becomes the place where modes of embodiment are tested, where attempts to grasp a presence, an attitude, or a way of inhabiting the world unfold.
For this presentation, a salon style display has been chosen, placing the works side by side in a deliberately dense visual continuity. This proximity evokes the atmosphere of a domestic interior, while generating a series of formal and conceptual resonances between the pieces. Together they form a field of correspondences, like the fragments of a vast puzzle through which the exhibition proposes the reading of a collective portrait.
The exhibition coincides with Drawings outside the lines at the Grand Palais, showcasing masterpieces from the Centre Pompidou’s collection from December 16, 2025, to March 15, 2026.
Aysha E Arar, I have a lot to tell you, but I don’t have a word to give you. Why should I speak when silence is better for me and for you?, 2024, pen on paper, 37 × 29.3 cm (framed), unique
Ezio Gribaudo, Flani e ritratti, 1960, mixed media on paper, 41 × 53 cm (unframed), 54.5 × 66.5 × 3.5 cm (framed), unique
Paul Becker, Bookmark #2, 2025, colored pencil on paper, 19.5 × 7.5 cm (unframed), 38 × 26 × 2.5 cm (framed), unique
Jessy Razafimandimby, untitled, 2021, chalk on paper, 29.7 × 21 cm (unframed) 31 × 22.5 × 3 cm (framed), unique
Dada Khanyisa, 69 Hope street, 2017, 2025, pencil on paper, 31 × 42 cm (unframed), 44 × 55.5 × 4 cm (framed), unique
Liselor Perez, Main pleurante, 2025, colored pencil on paper, wooden box with glass, 19 × 23.5 × 5.4 cm, unique
Lucile Littot, Two Hours Away, 2025, coloured pencil and gold ink on black paper, 21 × 14.8 cm, unique
Jean Cocteau, Milly, 1963, ballpoint pen on paper, 26.3 × 20.3 cm (unframed), 51 × 45 × 2 cm (framed), unique
Noémie Bablet, The Love Contest Series, 2019, pencils and markers on paper, 21 × 14 cm, unique
Ezio Gribaudo, Ritratto penna (Pen portrait), 1960, BIC pen on paper, 23 × 20 cm (unframed), 39.5 × 36.5 × 2.5 cm (framed), unique
Miriam Cahn, o.t., 08.04.1994, pencil on paper, 36 × 25 cm, unique
Mel Odom, Talking to Strange Men, 1984, pencil on paper, 13.9 × 12.3 cm (unframed), 40.5 × 39 × 2.5 cm (framed), unique
HaYoung, Solid time, 2025, oil pastel on paper, 30 × 20 cm, unique
HaYoung, Shhhhhhhhht, 2022, mixed media on paper, 20 × 30 cm, unique
