Focus sur Robert Malaval
Exhibition
From 18 February to 31 July 2025
Robert Malaval flew through life with the brilliance of a comet, against a backdrop of rock music and guitar riffs. His brief story blends with the spirit of an era: the world of comics, the glamorous spirit of the Rolling Stones, and the birth of punk.
Born out of the Nice school, he remains unclassifiable, flirting with art brut, pop art, and happenings.
Malaval created ink drawings, writing, meticulous graphics, humor, poetry, blots, and collage.
In 1961-1962, inspired by the carnival-goers of Nice, an informal material appeared in his works, made with reliefs of papier-mâché glued and painted white with oils, "a metaphor for a proliferating and inevitable evil." This would become the "White Foods" series, which conveys a calm atmosphere and already foreshadows the artist's deep anxieties. The only artist to have incorporated rock culture into his work, he accompanied his works with this music.
1973 saw the arrival of a new material: glitter, first as a simple pigment and then as a material that became the subject of the painting. The black background of his works, symbolizing his inner emptiness, highlights the movement and sparkle of the sequins. His "Stardust" series echoes the brevity of his life.
Between alcohol and drugs, Malaval slowly consumed himself, pushing his body to its physical and mental limits. In 1980, he shot himself in the mouth in his Parisian studio. As he said, his whole life he had wanted to "escape the boredom of repetition."
- The Exhibition -
With his lack of aesthetic prejudice, Jean Ferrero became interested in Robert Malaval very early on, starting in the early 1960s, and in his paintings and drawings. It was the collector who purchased many of his works, not the gallery owner.
The exhibition presents 10 works created between 1960 and 1973 (3 paintings, 2 reliefs, 4 drawings and 1 silkscreen print) from Jean Ferrero's personal collection.