SESSIONS #7
tandem
Initiated in 2016 by the Backslash gallery, SESSIONS is an annual collaborative event between galleries and actors of the art world born from the will to create a space for dialogue, conviviality and sharing.
SESSIONS aims to develop a transversal reflection on the emergence of new voices of contemporary art galleries. It is also an opportunity for artists, gallery owners, journalists, curators, collectors and the public to meet and exchange during two successive evenings and associated events.
This year SESSIONS is hosted by the Bertrand Grimont gallery and proposes to establish new dialogues by exhibiting the galleries in pairs; thus we present Pepe Gaitán in front of Gabriel Léger, a contemporary artist represented by the Vincent Sator gallery.
Born into the Colombian bourgeoisie, Pepe Gaitan has chosen to live a life of asceticism, the only pleasure of which comes directly from the daily reading he does in the national library in Bogotá. From these books, he selects pages that he photocopies and obliterates the counterforms. It is around these phantom graphemes that he composes his sibylline collages. In 2020, the Centre d’Art Contemporain de Genève honoured him in scrivere designando, an exhibition curated by Andrea Bellini and Sarah Lombardi.
Pepe disappeared at the beginning of 2022 without having completely solved the mystery of the amoebas running through the lines of his books.