<p>On the eve of her exhibition at the Musée national Picasso-Paris, the artist spoke with Florence Derieux about art history, influences, and the many women who populate her paintings</p>

Florence Derieux

Farah Atassi: ‘In painting, you do not make aesthetic choices, but moral ones’

<p>Farah Atassi’s compositions are made up of geometric shapes – simple patterns that spread over the entire surface of her paintings, and lines that define spaces. Then, once the stage is set, she positions her characters and arranges objects around them, completing the story&nbsp;as though in a play. Indeed, painted curtains sometimes conceal part of these scenes, further spurring our imagination. Recently, the human figure has assumed a particularly central role in the artist’s work. Whether the setting is a studio, a performance space, or a bathing scene, Atassi’s paintings are populated by female figures positioned in the middle of the canvas in relaxed poses, as though resting after a performance. Dancers, acrobats, bathers, and odalisques – are these women artists or models?</p>

<p><strong>Florence Derieux:&nbsp;</strong><strong>The paintings you are exhibiting at the Musée national Picasso-Paris provide  continuity with your work of recent years while simultaneously constituting a radically new body of work. Can you tell us about them?</strong></p><p>Farah Atassi: I have been working for several years on representations of the studio. For my exhibition at the Musée national Picasso-Paris, I made a series of paintings that question the relationship between the painter and model. I chose to paint studio scenes with models in an abstract style, with the aim of offering a nuanced interpretation of this formative and symbolic relationship. The women I painted are often dancers, and so artists themselves. They look directly back at the viewer and seem to recover their autonomy vis-à-vis the artist.&nbsp;</p>

<p><strong>What led you to portray dancers and bathers?</strong></p><p>I believe that we paint what we want to see. I love dance and music, so the world of performance comes through in my work. I like bathers because they embody indulgence, rest, and calm. Also, I paint a lot of interiors – artists’ studios and stage sets – so it is a real breath of fresh air for me to turn to beaches. </p><p>The question of subject matter in painting is complicated. You have to find the right balance, the right way to introduce a form of narrative, so that the subject remains essentially pictorial. An anti-narrative stance is impossible. These days, I prefer to confront this head-on by trying to create stories – the kinds of narratives that span the history of painting.</p>

<p><strong>What are these stories?</strong></p><p>In a way, they revisit the major movements that have made an impact on art history.</p><p><strong>Formally speaking, the evolution of your work is impressive. This can be seen with the composition itself, in the shapes you employ (with curves replacing angles), and in your palette. What motivates your choices?</strong></p><p>These developments happen naturally. I do not set any limits on my painting – anything is possible. The formal choices are decided by my intentions – some solutions disappear only to reappear later. Stylistic questions are not important to me, because I do not consider there to be a distinction between form and content. In painting, you do not make aesthetic choices, but moral ones.</p>

<p><strong>Your most recent paintings, however, accentuate drawing, composition, and color. They also display a new interest in nature and sensuality, and invite imagination and fantasy.</strong></p><p>It has been a natural development. By choosing to represent female figures, placed at the center of my paintings in resting and relaxed attitudes, I moved away from the clean, straight lines inspired by Cubism. I felt the need to rethink my palette and to come back to certain colors I had not used in some time. I then wanted to look again, and differently, at Matisse’s work. I also became interested in how Modernism developed in Central and South America, with a special interest in the work of the late Brazilian artist, Tarsila do Amaral. Her simple yet rigorous compositions, her colorful palette, her dreamlike yet humorous style, and her representations of bodies and plants resonate strongly with my current research.</p>

<p><strong style="background-color: initial;">In some respects, your recent paintings also seem to connect with certain works made by Picasso in his studio at the Villa La Californie in Cannes, where he lived from 1955 to 1961. In what way is Picasso an important reference for you?</strong></p><p>Picasso is a recognizable influence. All artists have influences, but they do not always disclose them. I am fascinated by Modern art. I have worked in conversation with Picasso and others while remaining a painter of my own time.  Some of the works he made in the second half of the 1950s allowed him to reevaluate the contribution of his own work, as well as that of some others, including Matisse. At the same time, by revisiting classical paintings by Velázquez, David, Delacroix, and Manet, he continued to explore the theme of the painter and model.</p>

<p><strong style="background-color: initial;">Did the invitation to show your work in a museum dedicated to him influence your formal and conceptual choices for this exhibition?</strong></p><p>It made me especially keen to revisit the theme of bathers, which I had explored a number of years ago, and which is present throughout Picasso’s career. I also chose to show two small bathers by Picasso from the late 1920s as a prologue to my exhibition – as a nod to the painter and the model. But, above all, I made several new works especially for this exhibition, including two large canvases, <em>Bather </em>[2022] and <em>Resting Bathers</em> [2022].</p><p>While preparing my exhibition, I was reminded of the film <em>Artists and Models</em> [1955] directed by Frank Tashlin, a musical comedy that I loved, and which is all 1950s Hollywood glamor. It tackles its subject from a very comical perspective, albeit with a touch of sexism symptomatic of the time. It was a reference that helped me to approach the figure of Picasso with humor and a bit of distance.</p>

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	<span style="font-size: 16px;">Florence Derieux is an art historian and curator. She is curator of the exhibition ‘Farah Atassi’, on view from September 13, 2022 to January 29, 2023 at the Musée national Picasso-Paris.</span>
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	<span style="font-size: 16px;">Farah Atassi is represented by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1254/Almine-Rech">Almine Rech</a> (Paris, Brussels, London, New York, Shanghai) and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/35851/Xippas">Xippas</a> (Paris, Geneva, Punta del Este).</span>
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	<span style="font-size: 16px;">English translation: Jacob Bromberg<strong></strong></span>
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	<span style="font-size: 16px;">Caption for full-bleed images, top to bottom:</span>
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	<span style="font-size: 16px;">Farah Atassi, Resting Bathers, 2022.&nbsp;Courtesy of the artist and Almine Rech.<br />Installation view of Farah Atassi's exhibition&nbsp;‘Farah Atassi’&nbsp;at the Consortium, Dijon, 2019-2020. Photograph by Matt Bohli.<br />Farah Atassi, Sleeping Dancer 2, 2021.&nbsp;Courtesy of the artist, Almine Rech and Xippas.</span></p>

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