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Saatchi Yates present Allez La France!

Paintings by Mathieu Julien, Jin Angdoo, Kevin Pinsembert and Hams Klemens displayed at Saatchi Yates Gallery in Allez La France! Left to Right: Mathieu Julien, Rouge Vendu, 2020, Acrylic and spray paint on cotton canvas 205 x 300 cm; Jin Angdoo, Graff Under Vendu, 2020, Acrylic and spray paint on cotton canvas, 217 x 330 cm; Jin Angdoo, Red Flower Off Center, 2020, Acrylic and spray paint on cotton canvas, 220 x 331 cm; and Kevin Pinsembert, Sans Titre (Décor +), 2020, Acrylic on cotton, 190 x 290 cm
Image courtesy of Saatchi Yates © Justin Piperger, 2021

Saatchi Yates have their next exhibition a group show Allez La France!, featuring works by Jin Angdoo, Mathieu Julien, Hams Klemens, and Kevin Pinsembert. Taking its title from fans’ chants for the French national football team, the exhibition brings together the work of these four painters to consider the legacy of the painting tradition in France. The show presents new large-scale works and marks the first time these artists will be shown together in a gallery space.


Paintings by Mathieu Julien, Jin Angdoo, Kevin Pinsembert and Hams Klemens displayed at Saatchi Yates Gallery in Allez La France!
Left to Right: Jin Angdoo, Red Flower Off Center, 2020, Acrylic and spray paint on cotton canvas, 220 x 331 cm; Kevin Pinsembert, Sans Titre (Décor +), 2020, Acrylic on cotton, 190 x 290 cm; Kevin Pinsembert, Opel Toyota, 2020, Acrylic on cotton, 190 x 300 cm; Hams Klemens, Untitled, 2020, Acrylic on canvas, 191 x 300 cm; and Hams Klemens, Untitled, 2020, Acrylic on canvas, 192 x 302 cm

Image courtesy of Saatchi Yates © Justin Piperger, 2021

The collective met and began their work between Marseille and Paris where they would paint on shared walls. They made large paintings which resonate more with abstract expressionism than street art. Their interest was in creating work that exists outside of museums, galleries and institutions; on display to the public for hours, days or weeks, depending on how quickly their work was painted over.


Paintings by Mathieu Julien, Jin Angdoo, Kevin Pinsembert and Hams Klemens displayed at Saatchi Yates Gallery in Allez La France! Left to Right: Kevin Pinsembert, Sans Titre (Décor +), 2020, Acrylic on cotton, 190 x 290 cm and Kevin Pinsembert, Opel Toyota, 2020, Acrylic on cotton, 190 x 300 cm Image courtesy of Saatchi Yates © Justin Piperger, 2021

Art historian Larissa Kikol comments:

“The group harnessed the freedom to paint on the big walls that they like – sometimes above ground and sometimes beneath – and all without having a safety net within theoretical discourse. Using their whole bodies, measured by their arm’s length and their homemade tools, they add their own paintings to the urban stage set. The city is big – painting is big.”


Paintings by Mathieu Julien, Jin Angdoo, Kevin Pinsembert and Hams Klemens displayed at Saatchi Yates Gallery in Allez La France! Left to Right: Hams Klemens, Untitled, 2020, Acrylic on canvas, 191 x 300 cm and Hams Klemens, Untitled, 2020, Acrylic on canvas, 192 x 302 cm Image courtesy of Saatchi Yates © Justin Piperger, 2021

“The current, younger generation no longer carries the burden of inheriting the interpretations of the 20th century and its cultural politics. Thanks to their predecessors, they can engage in a radical exploration of a new lightness, the physical joy of the size of their forms, the enjoyment of colour intensity and the body’s vibrant gestures.”


Paintings by Mathieu Julien, Jin Angdoo, Kevin Pinsembert and Hams Klemens displayed at Saatchi Yates Gallery in Allez La France! Left to Right: Mathieu Julien, Demi F Porte Metal, 2020, Acrylic and spray paint on cotton canvas, 215 x 145 cm and Mathieu Julien, Gris, 2020, Acrylic and spray paint on cotton canvas, 218 x 283 cm Image courtesy of Saatchi Yates © Justin Piperger, 2021

Allez La France! Featuring works by Jin Angdoo, Mathieu Julien, Hams Klemens and Kevin Pinsembert 12th April – 26th May 2021 saatchiyates.com

About the Artists


Hams Klemens Untitled, 2020 Acrylic on canvas 75 1/4 x 118 1/8 in. / 191 x 300 cm © Hams Klemens, 2020
Image courtesy of Saatchi Yates

Hams Klemens (b. 1984, Marseille, France) largest body of work to date exists in a tunnel underneath Marseille, where he creates giant abstract paintings using abandoned household paint cans, and handmade brush contraptions which stretch ten-foot-tall. Inspired by the children of the Marseille Projects, who he teaches art, his work is full of childlike marks and gestures.
Klemens’ rough take on abstract expressionism is reminiscent of exuberant landscapes, floral chaos or trembling water. They seem to be hallucinations of flickering landscapes in an otherwise dark, jerking techno club. Hams Klemens lives and works in Marseille, France.


Kevin Pinsembert Soir, 2020 Acrylic, gouache and spray paint on cotton 74 3/4 x 118 1/8 in. / 190 x 300 cm
© Kevin Pinsembert, 2020 Image courtesy of Saatchi Yates

Kevin Pinsembert’s (b. 1989, Paris, France) works start as Morandi-esque crude still lives, or sketches from compositions of Paris street scenes. He pairs unlikely groups; Toyota cars, rocks, roofs and colours and brings them together as abstracted forms on his canvasses. In addition, these lifeless elements have also turned into anonymous and unrecognisable objects. Sometimes they are stacked on top of each other, sometimes they seem to be lying around on tables or shelves, have collapsed or become colourful non-shapes.
These absurd compositions are then given formal labels painted back to front, Kevin Pinsembert takes language and steals it for himself by subverting it for his own use. Kevin Pinsembert lives and works in Paris.


Jin Angdoo Red Flower Off Center, 2020 Acrylic and spray paint on cotton canvas 86 5/8 x 130 1/4 in. / 220 x 331 cm
© Jin Angdoo, 2020 Image courtesy of Saatchi Yates

Asian-American Jin Angdoo (b. 1981 in Yeoju, Korea) went to Paris with no affinity to wall painting. She came to know the other artists work, and unfretted by their style, created her own signature expression of bold abstract iconography
Angdoo has created a vocabulary of painting through laying herself bare in her large, minimal compositions. Giant floating forms of polka dots, dragonfly crosses and floral insignia populate her canvasses. In their simplicity they become powerful flags which represent something larger than the sum of their parts. Jin Angdoo lives and works between Los Angeles and Paris.


Mathieu Julien Demi F Porte Metal, 2020 Acrylic and spray paint on cotton canvas 84 5/8 x 57 1/8 in. / 215 x 145 cm
© Mathieu Julien, 2020 Image courtesy of Saatchi Yates

Freed from the tradition of academic art, Matheiu Julien’s (b. 1982, Bordeaux, France) work is optimised by his improvisations on colour theory. His colours disobediently form crooked squares and rectangles, or elongated stalks. Some colour combinations make two areas of the canvas compete with each other, creating areas of both tension and calm.
The works are colourful mosaics built of windows, goal posts, entrances, streets and bars, the colouring-in is like playing with Lego bricks; a celebration of paint. Mathieu Julien lives and works between Los Angeles and Paris.

 

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