Alfred Courmes, La Rétrospective

A film by Gilles Coudert & Damien Faure

Year of production: 2023

Duration: 11 min.

French version

This film presents the retrospective exhibition dedicated to the artist Alfred Courmes (1898-1993) at the Espace Niemeyer in Paris. Painter of social history, who strives to dismantle the social, religious, militaristic forces which govern his century, Alfred Courmes, enchanter of desire, through his appetite for advertising images is undoubtedly the pioneer of a European pop’art and American. He is also a scholar of the history of mythology and science, suspicious of the history of religions, and even more of the disasters of war, an artist who knew how to shock and even surprise his contemporaries.

Adapted to the voluptuous forms of Oscar Niemeyer’s architecture, the route embraces an original scenography which begins with works from the 1920s and continues with paintings where Courmes develops collages of situations which combine urban settings, fantastic or iconic characters from the advertisement.

Dominique Carré, curator of the exhibition, as well as collectors Claude Baudet-Allard and Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, tell us about the artist and his work.

© a.p.r.e.s production