For the 50th anniversary of Pierre Molinier’s passing, I wanted to pay an homage to this unclassifiable artist. Despite his presence in major private collections and museums, few tributes are paid to him. The photo-novel Qui a volé mes jambes ? [Who stole my legs?] published by Éditions du Seuil will, I hope, stir some interest for his work.

To accompany this publication, Galerie GeorgesPhilippe & Nathalie Vallois offered me their space to curate an exhibition. I would like to thank Marianne Le Métayer in particular for this opportunity, and for her unabashed vision of art allowing for this manner of rendez-vous.

Tout en jambes obviously gives prominence to Molinier. My discovery of his art goes back around thirty years ago, and I owe it to Galerie 1900-2000. There, in the temple of Surrealism, I discovered the artists of dream and fantasy.

Among them, a self-taught man from Agen, a die-hard and a radical whose work and life became one, in a melding that would prove fatal. His photographs (the esoteric ones, which I distinguish from the erotic – a register I’m less drawn to) immediately kindled my fascination. Velvety blacks and whites, the multiplications of limbs reminiscent of Hindu iconography, crude montages imbued with the allure of the do-it-yourself, all of these elements provoked in me a “vertige” – as Breton coined it. And his provocation tinged with humor only reinforced my sympathy for this fiend.

But the exhibition pays tribute to shanks of all kinds: naked for Helmut Newton, gartered in Ellen von Unwerth’s art, donning shoes by Christian Louboutin or Peter Stämpfli, mirrored by Tomi Ungerer, intertwined by Louise Bourgoin, graphic for Pamela Berkovic, anonymous for John Kayser, sensual and colorful in Emanuel Proweller’s work, Pop and bucolic for Evelyne Axell, animalistic in William Wegman’s art, flamenco for Pilar Albarracín or even animated by Winshluss, the leg party begins here and all are welcome!

(Text by R. Jonathan Lambert, curator of the exhibition)