41, rue de Seine – 75006 – Paris
01 43 29 50 80
www.vallois.com

Yehuda Neiman
The Erotic
7 – 28 november

Vallois gallery, as part of the Month of Photography in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, presents an exhibition devoted to the painter, sculptor and photographer Yehuda Neiman. This is the second posthumous tribute dedicated to Neiman after our 2011 exhibition.

Born in 1931 in Warsaw in a Polish Jewish family, Yehuda Neiman first lived in Palestine and then moved to Paris in 1954, where he resided until his death at the age of 80. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Tel Aviv from 1945 to 1949, then in Paris at the School of Decorative Arts. Despite regularly visiting with members of New Realism, his work does not identify with any movement. The innovative and unique features of his photographic work nevertheless make him one of the precursors of Mec’art, a movement that appeared in Europe in 1963 and which consists of the creation of works by photographic transfer of images on various mediums according to techniques of impression and mechanical reproduction.
One of his subjects of predilection: the female nude, of which he sings the praises by exploring the intimacy and sensuality of curve, yet, by pleasure, steering clear of their erotic component. In effect, Yehuda Neiman does not content himself with capturing views of the secrets of the female body, he multiplies them, breaks them up, assembles them together, composing kaleidoscopic and carnal assemblages, among whom some will be transposed into the three-dimensional space in form of sculptures. Thus were brought together for this exhibition some twenty photographs and photomontages, black and white and monochrome, but also works with other materials and dimensions in which he reproduces and develops these original pictures in the years 1963 and 1967-1968.
Implemented, the principles of repetition, of axial symmetry and the reversal of elements create a thematic oscillation between figuration and geometric abstraction in the photographic work of Yehuda Neiman. Under the prism of these kinetic and vibrant developments, the creative power of the photographer acts as an Eros or Cupid offering a path to fulfillment of amorous desire. Pierre Restany, the preeminent critic of his work alongside Gérard Xuriguera, wrote: “His images of the flesh are beautiful as love.”
Valentine Plisnier