Pierre Alechinksy

Pierre Alechinsky (b.1927, Brussels, Belgium; lives and works in Bougival, France), is the last surviving member of the short-lived but influential European avant-garde movement, Cobra. Coinciding with his centenary year, this exhibition marks his first major solo presentation at a UK public institution for over six decades.

Featuring more than fifty works from the 1960s to the 2010s, this exhibition traces the development of one of the most inventive and experimental voices in postwar modern art. Rarely seen Indian ink drawings are presented alongside all-over painterly configurations in acrylic, in celebration of a radical and experimental artist who has had a profound influence on generations of artists from Keith Haring to Matt Copson.

Alechinsky’s rich and exuberant body of paintings and works on paper are characterised by a bold, spontaneous and expressive visual language. Bringing together organic shapes, anthropomorphic figures, surreal landscapes and imaginary creatures, his compositions incorporate calligraphic marks and gestural brushstrokes that engage with the history of painting, printmaking and drawing. One of Alechinsky’s signature compositional devices is the use of ‘marginal remarks’: black-and-white vignettes that frame his paintings and introduce surreal, parallel narratives. These compositions recall both comic strips and the predella panels of medieval and Renaissance art.

An illustrated catalogue designed by Philippe Ducat in close collaboration with Alechinsky accompanies the exhibition. It features a text by French feminist philosopher Hélène Cixous, published in English for the first time, alongside contributions by the late surrealist poet Joyce Mansour, amongst others. The publication also features a conversation between Alechinsky and Serpentine Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist, and a chronology compiled by Serpentine Exhibition Curator Chris Bayley.