Invitation card by Michal Batory, based on his theater poster "Femmes, femmes", 2003
Les Arts Decoratifs
107 rue de Rivoli, Paris, France
Exhibition: Thursday, January 20 at 11:00am - April 30 at 6:00pm
Opening: Wednesday, January 19 at 18:00
Michal Batory was born in Poland in 1959 and attended the School of Visual Arts in Lodz. In 1985, after graduating (with a poster-design project for the Warsaw Jazz Festival), he moved to Paris, thanks to a scholarship, and worked for several years in Laurence Madrelle’s studio, LM Communiquer, where, in addition to completing his theoretical training, he learned about computer-aided design.
In 1993, he won a competition for the scenography of an exhibition at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie and launched himself as a freelance artist. While working on this project he came into contact with Jorge Lavelli, director of the Théâtre National de la Colline and an amateur of Polish poster design. The following year he began a three-year collaboration with the Théâtre de la Colline, where he was responsible for all their graphic design, from publications to posters.
This was followed by a series of commissions from some of France’s most important cultural institutions: Ircam (Institute for Acoustic/Music Research and Coordination) and the Inter Contemporary Ensemble (from 1996 to 2002), for whom he created posters, as well as the visual identity of their CDs and publications; the Arsenal in Metz; the Théâtre National de Chaillot, with whom he regularly collaborated between 2001 and 2009; the publishers Flammarion, Belin and Drzewo Babel; Radio France and the Centre des Arts in Enghien-les-Bains.
His visual vocabulary was regularly seen on the streets of Paris, at the same time becoming more widely accepted as part of the country’s visual culture.
Michal Batory’s work lies at the junction of two artistic universes, Polish posters and Surrealism, while his background and training inevitably brought him into contact with the work of Constructivists like Rodchenko, Lissitzky and Strzeminski, with whom his professors themselves had trained.
He was concerned less with composition than with the art of collage, photomontage and actual lettering, to which he paid great attention, applying Lautréamont’s notion of beauty, which was later taken up by André Breton: "Beautiful like the fortuitous encounter between an umbrella and a sewing machine on a dissecting table."
His images frequently draw on the unlikely association of two objects or ideas, making use of the unexpected to humorous, poetic and emotional effect.
In addition to this solid referential base, what characterises Michal Batory’s graphic language is its closeness to his mental universe, made up of dreams and poetry, where the very simplest elements of his daily existence are transformed into poetic images. As he himself says: “Every day, I throw myself into a state of solitude, an imaginary world all of my own, a bit like children do. I’m all alone and the white pages of my notebook just fill themselves.”
A combination of assemblage and photographic work thus gives birth to a cotton bud growing out of a tuning fork for Ircam’s 1997-1998 musical season, a plastic bag evokes a face for Tamburlaine the Great at the Théâtre de Chaillot in 2001, a pillow becomes the bust of a Woman on the Bed for the Théâtre de Chaillot, a Sargent Major-pen dances on the cover of Paulo Coelho’s book, Zahir, and a musical triangle begins to bud in the poster for Ircam’s 2001-2002 musical season.
This unexpected way of looking at things was Batory’s way of inviting the passerby to participate in a playful game of code-breaking, thus establishing a dialogue between his client and the public.
In this exhibition, Michal Batory has chosen to share his graphic work with the public, and to reveal its origins.
The first room conjures up the intimacy of the artist’s studio-home, its walls and surfaces lined with images and personal objects – a faded flower used for the Adami 2008 New Year’s greetings card, a match-sculpture of a chair for the Ligne de fuite poster for the Théâtre de Chaillot, cameras, a computer, books, postcards pinned to things, photographic studies for future projects… and all the while, music playing in the background.
His large work albums allow us to understand the different stages of his creative process. For commissions, the process begins with a period of research and consultation with those concerned (author, director, choreographer, musician). This is followed by a period of reflection, which, in turn, gives birth to a drawing and finally a three-dimensional work, a sculpture or assemblage, often temporary, which Batory then photographs. This image is then sometimes, but not always, reworked by computer and formatted.
The other exhibition rooms display 75 large format posters grouped by theme: dance, music, theatre. The last three rooms are dedicated to the Théâtre National de la Colline and the Théâtre de Chaillot.