French artist Pierre Molinier (1900 – 1976) began his career by painting landscapes, but his work turned towards a fetishistic eroticism early on. Pierre Molinier started his erotic production around 1950. His work has influenced European and North American artists since the 1970s, including Jürgen Klauke, Cindy Sherman and Ron Athey. Pierre Molinier’s work continues to engage artists, critics, and collectors today.*

The current exhibition Pierre Molinier: Oeuvres Inédites at the gallery Kamel Mennour in Paris, France, accompanies Jean-Luc Mercié’s monograph, who provides us with an introduction to Molinier’s work in this video. The work analyses the procedures and retraces the genesis of the photomontages and sets out a new biography drawing on unpublished correspondence. In 2000, galerie Kamel Mennour held a Pierre Molinier retrospective and published a catalogue in conjunction with it. In 2005, a second, more intimate exhibition was organised to coincide with the publication of the artist’s essays, Je suis né homme-putain.

The exhibition Pierre Molinier: Ouvres inédites. Collages & Photomontages focuses on an unknown section of his work, more extemsive and varied than had been thought, and in particular on the collages, kept secret until now, and which formed the “matrix” for the photomontages of Le Chaman et ses créatures. We also discover sketches, negative prints and one-off proofs enlivened with pencil, as well as photographs published for the first time. The installation evokes Pierre Molinier’s universe. It consists of a collection of furniture, paintings, drawings and objects taken from his apartment in Bordeaux. (Excerpt from the press release).

Video by Christophe Ecoffet. Pierre Molinier: Oeuvres Inédites at Kamel Mennour, Paris. Interview with Jean-Luc Mercié, February 11, 2010.

* Wikipedia, keyword “Pierre Molinier”, revision 23 January 2010, 02:02.

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