A.K. "Memories" by Art'up Gallery

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ShowBox Avraham Bard and Art’Up Gallery present in the USA:

ALAIN KLEINMANN “Memories”

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ShowBox is pleased to introduce Alain Kleinmann - renowned French artist and recipient of the country’s Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion of Honor - and his enterprising showcase for the US market. Alain’s work on identity through his layered, multi-textural approach to materials, iconography, colors, and symbolism makes anyone confronted with his work think about their own identity. In the world we live in today, ShowBox is particularly proud to be able to bring you select highlights from his internationally acclaimed “Memories” series, and expose his commanding, hauntingly beautiful imagery to a new audience. We are humbled that Alain has chosen to share the gift of his art, and entrusting us to support his journey here in the United States. Camille Bidermann & Tracy Oliver

“L’escalier de la bibliothèque”. Mixed media on canvas. 35x45.5 in

“Les enseignements du grand-père”. Mixed media on canvas. 36x29 in

“Le portail”. Mixed media on canvas. 39x32 in

“Un refrain oublié”. Mixed media on canvas. 25.5x32 in

“Le départ”. Mixed media on canvas. 23.5x29 in

Alain Kleinmann was born on June 18, 1953 in Paris, where he still lives and works. Over the years, Alain Kleinmann has literally created his own visual vocabulary. Part of his artistic approach may be understood as a synthetic research between abstract and figurative visual expressions. Simple and moving images, always a subtle blend of dream and reality, arise from the artist’s paintings. His technique is indeed very personal and the result of a long research as his canvases are a mixture of ancient photographs, fabrics and gauzes, worn cardboards, antique postcards and tickets. This juxtaposition of portraits and artifacts is emphasized in a subtly nuanced, restrained chromatic range. Each one of Alain Kleinmann’s pieces is a testimony of fragmented remembrances amassed over the years, a visualization of the archives of Memory. “I know so well the sights that I see in Alain Kleinmann’s paintings: they seem surprised to challenge our true memory; the writings that cross them out, the spaces that shroud them, the moves from which they shudder, seem to be moments of life torn from life itself. Memories of moments of life, powerful art that has anchored its roots in daily life itself, and which discreetly signs off on itself infinitely as when after a long voyage in time. The art of Alain Kleinmann belongs to those who create art: it is a trail sprinkled with warm yet painful humanity that overwhelms us with its sculptural and poetic truth. Its themes are our lives, public places, crowd movements, exchanges of glances, theatrical scenes, spaces of disquieting murmurs, secret masquerades, hope and its glimmer nested in the shadows. Contemplating the works of Alain Kleinmann, is like standing before our own human depth; it is a way for us to reach again our own interior light.” Louis Aragon (Académie Goncourt member Louis Aragon, one of the most famed French poets of the 20th century, wrote this in 1982) In an interview with Marianne Delranc-Gaudric dated December 2012, Alain Kleinmann remembers a conversation he had with Elie Wiesel who was admiring his paintings. “Elie Wiesel asked: “Is it me looking at the painting or the painting looking at me?” As I did not fully understand what he meant but thought it was an important question, I asked him to elaborate. He explained to me that, for example, when one looks at a Rembrandt painting, it is evident that Rembrandt is looking at you and it is not just you who are looking at the painting. And he added: “I just had the same impression”. Visual media has the potential to trigger something more mysterious, more subtle, almost metaphysical, a sort of meeting between an object and someone, of someone with something, which in any case has very little to do with the object itself. When Louis Aragon wrote about “our own interior light”, I believe he meant exactly that. Painting, like literature, like music, is not just painting, literature or music… Is it emotion? Elie Wiesel, who is also a monument of literature, said it in a more mysterious way: one may indeed say that art arouses emotion, but it is as if, in addition to that, Rembrandt was in fact looking at us from the depth of the XVIIth century…” Alain Kleinmann thinks that “there is no difference in the nature of a painting, a sculpture, a drawing, an engraving, and materials. They are all different words with which one may build sentences. The more varied is the vocabulary, the more precise is the expression.” Here is an artist with a wide intellectual curiosity. He created theater set designs as well as book covers, and has deepened his aesthetic philosophy embodied with books, suitcases, watches, letterboxes, keys and locks. The bronzes accentuate abundance with their patina of blue and green highlights, a technical marvel composed of light folds, which is reminiscent of an object frozen in time finally found by an archeologist. Books pile up in an imaginary attic: this is the frozen time captured by pocket watches mounted on base plates. Worn-out, patched-up suitcases, marked by too many exiles, convey an impression of constant departure. One feels like grasping them and opening them up as they harbor our own humanity with such emotional intensity. “A blank page is never blank. It already carries within it the memory of all its components: the vegetal fibers that compose it, the water that quenched it, everything that has contributed to give it its weft. A blank page is soft or coarse, thin or thick, heavy or light, see-through or opaque, consistent or contrasted: it either entices or repels writing and drawings, it is friendly or abrasive. A blank page was born in the fragrance of forests and it dies in a wastebasket, in a letter, a book, or imprisoned by a frame. Sometimes, fungus and mold eat at it as if to bring it back to its original vegetal state and one could think that thus, justice is served. Before you put your pencil on a blank sheet, you ought to always listen to it telling you its history” reflects Kleinmann. These themes, as well as his predilection for some creative materials, are what link Kleinmann to others in a collective 12

of artists named “Mémoires” (Memories) that was created in 2000 and includes: Hastaire, Yuri Kuper, Didier Mahieu, Mary Curtis Ratcliff, Martin Vaughn James, Wang Yan Cheng and Boris Zaborov. These themes and his philosophy of art are also what have made Alain Kleinmann an artist of international renown and the very reason why he was awarded the Jacob Buchmann Prize by the “Fondation du Judaïsme français” (The Foundation for French Judaism), on November 26, 2007, in Paris. The Works of Alain Kleinmann by Elisabeth de Fontenay (Philosopher, Professor of Philosophy at University of Paris-Sorbonne, President of the Foundation for the Remembrance of the Shoah) “Please allow me to take stock of the most frequent motives of Alain Kleinmann’s work for those of you who are not yet familiar with it. First, we must talk about colors, or should I say, hues and shades. We are talking of browns and chesnuts and sepias, swarthy greys, earthy tans, color notes of the past that are sometimes made more vibrant by a touch of garnet, and other times muffled a bit by golds and silvers. Let me quote Alain Kleinmann in saying that “the persistence of sight” and “abandoned things that keep inside themselves the persistence of past lives, like a musical silence keeps the memory of the last notes played”, are inscribed in these delicate color inflections. Here are a few of these abandoned things as the artist has recorded or sometimes reinvented them. The monumental baroque stairs of an ancient patrician residence that one imagines being in the old Jewish quarter of Prague; the portal of a castle’s park where one imagines that children were hidden and later, children were saved; drawing pads upon which books were imagined, slowly sprouted, and were finally born; piles of old secret books, arranged haphazardly, as is the case in the bookcases of those who do read books; heaps of keys that have lost their keyholes and old mailboxes that can no longer be opened, embedded with medallions, and sometimes stamped with a NLRAA: “No longer resides at this address”. Is it the painter who no longer resides here as he might have confided in us? Or is it the Jews, maybe? Or could it possibly be G.d himself Who, for a few years, was no longer found at His usual address? Unless… unless one should hear these five letters with interior peace, as if they were an eternal enigma, the Hebrew Melody of Maurice Ravel, whose words are reduced to the childish and deep repetition of two syllables “tralala lala lala”. Let me continue with my inventory. Maps, railroad networks, piled-up suitcases that date from before the war, a mix of beauty and sadness that never gets overdramatic or pathetic; a variety of paintbrushes, signatures repeated again and again; suites of rubber stamps; postage stamps and seals, sometimes a deep scarlet, that obstruct the image by announcing “Fragile” or allow to read a number that is never free of cruelty; ancient photographic portraits, often out of focus, anonymous, and yet clear tracks of insistent reminiscences. And then some: instruments, partitions… Oh how they evoke those violinists of old who would perform the Kreutzer Sonata only to let themselves go into playing an old forgotten tune, a tune like Mein Shtetele Belz for example. Why is it that this particular song suddenly comes to my mind? First maybe, because I can hear it being sung or hummed for as far back as my memories go. Or maybe is it because Daniel Mendelssohn -the author of “The Lost”, who won the National Jewish Book and National Book Critics Circle Awards in 2006, the Medicis Prize and Best Book of the Year Award in 2007- shares with Alain Kleinmann a kinship because of their soft manners and their obstinacy to remember and to be linked to the past. In this book Daniel Mendelssohn recounts how the Nazis and their Ukrainian lackeys forced those about to be murdered to walk and sing Mein Shtetele Belz to their death in the extermination camp of Belzec. And all this because the murderers found the homophony between Belz and Belzec amusing! The soft music measures, the simple words reminiscent of the childhood’s little town, little house and little green tree, the enticing rhythm that lulled or intoxicated the refugees of Yiddishland, were used by the executioners to further humiliate and despair their victims with perverse refinement. I would still like to evoke –and this will be end of my enumeration of “Kleinmannian” themes- the carts pulled by a single horse, driven by one or two men wearing a chapka and who sometimes look back on us. They appear to us to be humble and yet proud, perfect ambassadors of the worried happiness of the Shtetl, of the root of Jewish vagrancy in the wooden villages, of the rural landscapes of Poland and Ukraine. These are the most blatant themes of the artistic works we are celebrating tonight. The Prize that Alain Kleinmann is given tonight, and that he shares with Shlomo Venezia, bears the name of a man who comes from the same lands of Eastern Europe: Jacob Buchmann, whose wife and young child were murdered in Auschwitz. Alain will probably not find it odd that I analyze his works solely from a Jewish perspective. Indeed, some eminent amateurs of Alain’s works have taken a different approach: Louis Aragon was one of them. I hope Alain will understand my reasons for deciding to focus on the Jewish aura of his work. In religious iconography, the aura is the halo, the nimbus that surrounds the body of a sanctified man or of a divinity and it represents holiness or power. 13

The philosopher Walter Benjamin has used the word aura to characterize the specificity of a work of art inasmuch as it is unique and inscribed in a historical and spatial context. He defines the aura as the “expression of remoteness whatever might be its proximity". What is it that Alain Kleinmann offers? Exactly that! The painful closeness of this faraway past, the present-absence of the Yiddish People. The human catastrophe, or is it the Shoah, is omnipresent in Alain’s works but it is implicit as he wrote: “I think that the power of suggestion of a whisper is louder than that of a scream”. What he evokes are not the final processes of absolute cruelty but what used to be alive beforehand, all that lived and all those who could not fathom, anticipate or prevent the abominable end. Kleinmann offers us the faces, the clothing, the manners of these men, women and children who, through interrupted genealogy, gave birth to us. He reinvents the day-to-day community life, sweet and sour, this sepia colored life of Yiddishland that was maybe not meant to last forever but which died in a way that should have never occurred. Most often, it is in looking close at details that one discovers the treasures of remembrance that I listed too quickly earlier. An entire universe awakens before our eyes if we magnify each and every fragment of this work. Allow the philosopher that I am, dear Alain Kleinmann, to talk to you as the mathematician that you are. Let me quote the Monadology of the great philosopher and mathematician Leibniz. “In the smallest parcel of matter, there is a world of creatures, of live beings, of animals and souls. Each portion of matter can be conceived as a garden filled with plants and like a pond filled with fish. But every twig of a plant, each limb of an animal, every drop of its secretions is still and again like a garden and a pond”. This philosophy titled itself the “labyrinth of continuum” and one could link it to a certain baroque spirit, that of artists who never allow for the presence of emptiness in the space of their works; maybe this baroque spirit is that of Prague and how you love to represent the city. Leibniz’ philosophy is astonishingly close to the painted and sculpted works that we are gathered to celebrate tonight. With one difference: optimism in the face of evil in the world, the justification of G.d’s goodness, in one word created by Leibniz, theodicy, is foreign to the radicalism of Nazi evil, and this implicitly haunts Kleinmann’s artistic inspiration. What makes this artwork so brilliant is, among many things, its singular materiality. What I mean by this is the unexpected use of materials used in the stead of, or rather in order to, enhance painting, collage, construction, grafting. Alain said: “I am often inspired by materials haphazardly found and unplanned for”. The artist’s language is constructed from what he himself calls “materials from the attic”: rags, gauze, crumpled scraps of paper, embossed wallpaper, gold leaves, industrial tracing paper, pictures rolled and smoothed into the canvas. The portraits he sketches are the liaison between materials and painting. The artist points out the startling role that corrugated cardboard plays: when it is torn, it does not show a clean cut, and in this way, when it is integrated into the canvas it creates a lightly raised design that is often integrated by the drawing of diagonal grooves that are repeated rhythmically. Alain Kleinmann’s works are neither figurative nor abstract. The use of mixed techniques, the painting, the sculpting, the stratification of diverse materials, the superposition and overlapping of layers, often missing emptiness, delimitation or frame, constitutes a new artistic language, with its own vocabulary, its own syntax, and its own fluency. In one of his pieces, the artist wrote “Unser Wort” and the title of this old Yiddish daily newspaper seems to lead his entire works from a long-gone distant past, with sprinkles of familiar and peculiar allusions that nab our memories. As Laurence Sigal noted, these are labyrinths of superposition, takes and retakes and facades that allow for a familiarity and yet, at the same time, render illegible the references inscribed in the matter and the lines of writing. It is as if the signs and symbols were both accurate and faded, as if everything was floating in between the spoken and the unspoken, as if the artist was making sure that the drawn words were unreadable. One may say that Kleinmann offers us the true make-believe of history’s archives, of our ravaged life-stories, because time itself creeps back up in the magic space of his painting and the past is magically pulled from nothingness, even if we do not clearly recognize all the objects and faces that are offered. “I paint the identity card of an event”, Kleinmann wrote. I was helped by Walter Benjamin’s philosophy not so much to let myself be absorbed by Kleinmann’s paintings, but to distance myself from it just enough to be able to talk about it. Walter Benjamin spoke of exactly the same concept when he wrote that his objective in writing was “to give a material countenance to dates”. This meticulous desire to incarnate temporality is found again in poet Paul Celan’s writings when he sung: “The poem speaks! Of the date that is his own… of the unique circumstance that is its concern”. Is it not in this same path that Jewish tradition asks that the names of the deceased be pronounced out loud and inscribed? Because, the act of assigning a date, of inscribing the record of a unique event, is nothing less for Celan and Benjamin and Kleinmann than remembering. And this remembrance, this Zachor, does not only keep the past alive, it allows the past to live again and be brought up to date in the experience of the present. And it is thus, in our name, and for our sake, that Kleinmann gives back its aura to the body and soul of a world murdered not so long ago.” Speech delivered at the award ceremony of the Jacob Buchmann Prize (Fondation du Judaïsme Français – Foundation for French Judaism) to Alain Kleinmann, on November 26, 2007 in Paris

“Le voyage”. Mixed media on canvas. 35x45.5 in

“Un souvenir d’enfance”. Mixed media on canvas. 35x45.5 in

“Mémoire de bibliothèque”. Mixed media on canvas. 35x45.5 in

“Shtetl”. Mixed media on canvas. 51x38 in

“Les clefs du savoir”. Mixed media on canvas. 51x38 in

Alain Kleinmann in Havana, 2009 by Abelardo Mena (Chief Curator of the Collection of Contemporary International Art in the National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba.) “To welcome the works of French artist Alain Kleinmann in the midst of the Museum of Universal Art is a decisive additional step on the cultural bridge between Havana and Paris since the era of colonial domination. This dialog got woven through a variety of paths: publications, artistic and cultural exchange trips. It never ceased to be intensely dynamic even if, at times, it suffered –as does all intercultural communication- from moments of contraction or even estrangement. The spiritual link between France and Cuba is far more important than simple pretexts for doctoral theses and publications. In the merging of these two deep rivers that are the Almendares of Julian del Casai and the Seine of Modigliani, the National Museum of Art played an essential part. After its re-opening in 2001, this Museum became the inescapable estuary between the largest Caribbean island and the diverse exhibitions of the francophone sphere. The presence of French art at the National Museum of Art is not only in the permanent collection but also in the unsuspected excellence of the collections of the Museum of Decorative Arts and the Napoleon Museum. In 1997, a collection of International Contemporary Art was created by the National Museum and allowed for a reevaluation of the avant-garde practices linked to the École de Paris. Its first showing took place in July of 2003 during the exhibition “From Picasso to Keith Haring”… One hundred years after the very first exhibition of contemporary French art in republican Cuba (Athenea of Havana, January 15 – February 15 1907) the Universal Art Edifice resumes its relationship with the plastic art adventures born in this European country. This is how Alain Kleinmann came ashore in Cuba, in between hurricanes, with huge canvases under his arm! While being faithful to the art of canvas painting, Alain Kleinmann’s paintings weave hyperlinks with other art forms by using images and memory. The French artist uses the most modest tools to transform his canvas into layers of superimposed materials, a notebook made of scraps of memory. For Kleinmann, photographs of parents, children, Rabbis buried in learning, bookshelves and rows after rows of books, train stations, dark staircases, are transformed because of the use and assembly of materials. All this brings back to mind a familiar, intimate, fossilized universe, from which all historical contingence is absent, and which evokes, through its architecture, the sensuous France of Art Nouveau and that of the Dreyfus Affair. In some ways, Kleinmann is alike a vagabond archeologist: he has no certitude to unveil, no motive to exhibit, no culprit to chastise. Who are we dealing with? Is Kleinmann a painter of History or is he rather a writer who utilizes paint to work on the fringe of public and official histories and thus creates open-ended texts, couched in allusions and vagueness. The way Kleinmann creates does not offer nostalgic evasions. His deep conviction is what drives him to glean archival images, old publications found in flea markets or in antique stores; these images are the building blocks of a past we will no longer be able to escape. The way Kleinmann arranges them all is apparently disorderly and also includes three-dimensional objects, some of which are remodeled in bronze to harmoniously appear as a counterpoint between reality and its representations. The fantastical sheen of the canvases brings back the aura of the photographic images. These are submitted to an intertwining of meaning that sharpens the real or simulated textures and transforms them into a communicative theatrical composition that stresses the factual split and its shift from chronicle towards allegory. It is no surprise to find Alain Kleinmann, a corsair on the sea of images from the past, make a foray into Havana. With the keen eye of the Baudelairean flâneur, Alain has added his name to the list of French creators who, from Federico Mialhe to Agnès Varda, have perceived our island’s nature and ambiance. His approach of Havana is intimate, refined yet never pompous, and focuses mainly on its architecture. Havana’s mythical grandeur is the result of an eclecticism fed by the modernity of Louis Sullivan’s Chicago and the aristocratic urbanism of Baron Haussmann’s Paris. What guides Kleinmann’s steps is the search for resemblance and familiarity: this is why there is no break between his creation in Paris and that which we await in Havana. “Alain Kleinmann is not the triumphal example of rapid painting that young artists hurriedly put together in airports or in the International Art Exhibitions that try to mimic the Salons of the XIXth century. He is however the perfect example of an art, faithful to itself, of an artistic work that has its roots, like philosophy, in long conversations in cafés or after a good meal. This is a wonderful opportunity to introduce him to our public.”

“L’attente”. Mixed media on paper. 12x16.5 in “L’attente”. Mixed media on paper. 12x16.5 in

“Les malles”. Mixed media on paper. 12x16.5 in “Les malles”. Mixed media on paper. 12x16.5 in

“L’escalier indien”. Mixed media on paper. 12x16.5 in

â&#x20AC;&#x153;La vielle porteâ&#x20AC;?. Mixed media on paper. 12x16.5 in

“La shule”. Mixed media on paper. 12x16.5 in

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Le corridorâ&#x20AC;?. Mixed media on paper. 12x16.5 in

“Le sextuor”. Mixed media on paper. 12x16.5 in

“L’ancienne maison”. Mixed media on paper. 12x16.5 in

“Les deux soeurs”. Mixed media on paper. 12x16.5 in.

“Le Rav”. Mixed media on paper. 12x16.5 in

“Une photo retrouvée”. Mixed media on paper. 12x16.5 in

“Les souvenirs reliés”. Mixed techniques. 10x11.5x3 in

“Maximes des pères”. Book and sculpture. 10x11.5x3 in

“Parcours”. Mixed media on cover. 9x13 in

“Pirkeï Avot”. Mixed media on cover. 25x19 in

“Les filaments de la mémoire”. Mixed media on cover. 10x7.5 in

“Le livre des deux frères”. Mixed media on cover. 10x16.5 in

Speech by the Prime Minister of France, Mr. Bernard CAZENEUVE, at the ceremony to award the insignia Speech by the Prime Minister of France, Mr.the Bernard of Chevalier of the National Order of Legion of CAZENEUVE, at the ceremony toataward the insignia of Honor to Alain KLEINMANN the Hotel de Matignon, Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion of Honor to February 15, 2017: Alain KLEINMANN at the Hotel de Matignon, February Speech 15, 2017:by the Prime Minister of France, Mr. Bernard CAZENEUVE, at the ceremony to award the insignia of of Culture, dear Audrey AZOULAY, MadamofMinister Chevalier the National Order of the Legion of Honor to of Parliament, Alain KLEINMANN at the Hotel de Matignon, February Members 15,Secretary 2017: General, Ambassadors,

Gentlemen of the Prefets, Admiral, Grand Rabbi of France, dear Haïm KORSIA, Mr. President of the Consistory, dear Joël MERGUI, Monsignor, dear Stanislas LALANNE, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Alain KLEINMANN, Madam Minister of Culture, dear Audrey AZOULAY, Members of Parliament, Secretary General, Ambassadors, Gentlemen of the Prefets, Madam Minister of Culture, dear Audrey AZOULAY, Admiral, You come from a family that had to ﬂee several countries of Members of Parliament, Grand Rabbi of France, dear Haïm Central Europe because of itsKORSIA, Jewish origins. Secretary General, Ambassadors, Mr. President of the Consistory, dear Joël MERGUI, Gentlemen of the Prefets, Monsignor, dear Stanislas LALANNE, When you were a child, your parents rarely spoke of being Admiral, Ladies and Gentlemen, Jewish. In this post-war period, the fears of persecution Grand Rabbi of France, dear Haïm KORSIA, Dear Alain KLEINMANN, were not extinguished; We understand that they inspired Mr. President of the Consistory, dear Joël MERGUI, many parents with precautions Monsignor, dear Stanislas LALANNE, dictated by tenderness and Ladies and Gentlemen, the weight of destiny. Dear Alain KLEINMANN, You started using brushes at the age of eight. Painting was for you more than a vocation: it was your deepest aspira You tion. It was extinguished, even during your of passage come fromnever a family that had to flee several countries

in preparatory classes, you preferred to abandon Europe because of its which Jewish origins. Central rather than renounce the happiness that your art provided you with. When you were a child, your parents rarely spoke of being You come from a family that had to flee several countries of Jewish. In this post-war period, the fears of persecution were Europe because of “Beaux-Arts” its Jewish origins. Central You then start at the School whichmany immedianot extinguished; We understand that they inspired tely feels too academic and constraining for the fantasy that parents with precautions dictated by tenderness and the weight When you were a child, your parents rarely spoke of being ofseems destiny.to be a determining element of your personality.You Jewish. In this post-war period, the fears of persecution were then decide to pursue the study of mathematics at the uninot extinguished; We understand that they inspired many You startedasusing thesemiology age of eight.with Painting for versity, wellbrushes as thatat of Juliawas KRISTEVA. parents with precautions dictated by tenderness and the weight you more than a vocation: it was your deepest aspiration. It was of Outside destiny. of your classes, you rediscover the Jewish culture never extinguished, during your passage in preparatory and the memoryeven of the disappeared «Yiddischland». classes, which you preferred to abandon rather than renounce You started using brushes at the age of eight. Painting was for theThis happiness thatleads your you art provided you with. journey to become the aspiration. painter whom you more than a vocation: it was your deepest It was we all know today as painting memories. never extinguished, even during your passage in preparatory classes, which you preferred to abandon rather than renounce the happiness that your art provided you with.

The Israeli novelist Amos OZ says of your works that they are «a powerful commemoration of a world that has been murdered.» Here too, a phrase of great beauty which tells the depth of a being and all the intensity of an art. This memory, inhabited by the shadow of the victims of the Holocaust, explores it alone, but also within a collective: the group “Mémoires”, which you founded with the painter HASTAIRE, as well as artists such as KUPER or ZABOROV. Through your art, you tear souls away from oblivion, you revive traces of presence. A work entitled «The gateway to remembrance» symbolizes your endeavor: you try to overcome the silences to revive the memory through «a path full of warm and painful humanity that overwhelms with its plastic and poetic truth», to use the words by Louis ARAGON. You do it from photographs, as in «La pose», or by a set of pictorial symbols, the motif of the suitcase, for example, refers back to the theme of wandering; while the keys and the locks refer back to the unspoken. Painting, sculpture, drawing and engraving are for you so many ways to express yourself. You use very different materials: photographs, fabrics, subway tickets, papers... You create your own language, composed of numbers, alphabets, typographic or musical signs.That is to say, as you develop your work, you create a universe of your own, in which we penetrate with you by discovering it with sensitivity and happiness. You have your own poetic language, your own book of MALLARME - a book without beginning or end, because for you, a work is never completely finished if it is a creation. You often transport us to the universe of books, as in «The library of MONDRIAN».The books fill up your studio, which is also, I am told, your secret garden. I hope I can one day visit you there, because I love gardens, I love secret gardens, I love books, paintings and painters. There is therefore no reason why you should not accede to this demand. Reading is also something you share with your wife, Emmanuelle, and your four children, to whom you readily read poetry, I am told. After reading comes writing.You have notably authored «La peinture et autres lieux,» which was adapted to the theater by the company ALDABA during the 11th Havana Biennale in Cuba. Your entire body of work is the product of an art which convenes, in the shadow of the intimate, fraternal relations between history and memory. This is what makes you a great French artist. Your reputation is international, and contributes to the radiance of France around the world. For you have been exposed everywhere, at the Center Georges Pompidou as well as at the Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing - a city where I was last week - or at the Tretiakov Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow. But also at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the Kunsthalle in Berlin, the Science Museum in London, the New York Coliseum or the Leonardo Da Vinci Museum in Milan ... In 2007, the French Judaism Foundation awarded you the Jacob BUCHMANN Prize. It was about time for the French Republic, to show you its gratitude and admiration for a body of work so rich, so singular, so beautiful. This is why Alain Kleinmann, on behalf of the President of the Republic of France, and by virtue of the powers conferred on us, we make you Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.

ALAIN KLEINMANN’S PIECES WERE EXHIBITED IN THE FOLLOWING MUSEUMS: ALAIN KLEINMANN’S ALAIN KLEINMANN’S PIECES PIECES WERE WERE EXHIBITED EXHIBITED IN IN THE THE FOLLOWING FOLLOWING MUSEUMS: MUSEUMS: Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France Centre Georges Pompidou, France Museum Léonardo da Vinci, Vinci,Paris, Milan, Italy Museum Léonardo da Milan, Italy Museum Léonardo da Vinci, Milan, Italy Science Museum, London, GB GB Science Museum, London, Science Museum, London, GB USA New York Coliseum, New York, New York Coliseum, New USA New YorkMuseet, Coliseum, New York, York, USA Tekniska Stockholm, Sweden Tekniska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden Tekniska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden Kunsthalle, Berlin, Berlin, Germany Germany Kunsthalle, Kunsthalle, Berlin, Germany des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium Belgium Palais Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium Musée d’Art Contemporain, Fontainebleau, France France Musée d’Art Contemporain, Fontainebleau, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Fontainebleau, France Palais de Beaulieu, Lausanne, Switzerland Palais de Beaulieu, Switzerland Palais deVelázquez, Beaulieu, Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland Palacio Madrid, Spain Palacio Velázquez, Madrid, Spain Palacio Velázquez, Madrid, Spain Musée de la Résistance, Lyon, France Musée de la Résistance, Lyon, France Musée de la Résistance, Lyon, France Musée de Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France Musée de Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France Musée de Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France Musée de Quimper, France Musée de Quimper, France Musée de Quimper, France Musée de la Vicomté, Melun, France Musée de la Vicomté, France Musée de la Vicomté, Melun, Melun, France de Mantes-la-Jolie, France Musée Musée de Mantes-la-Jolie, France Musée de Mantes-la-Jolie, France Musée des Capucins, Coulommiers, France Musée des Coulommiers, France Musée des des Capucins, Capucins, Coulommiers, France Musée Invalides, Paris, France Musée des Invalides, Paris, France Musée Marquelet, des Invalides, Paris,France France Musée Meaux, Musée Marquelet, Meaux, France Musée Marquelet, Meaux, France Musée d’Art Contemporain, Mont-de-Marsan, Mont-de-Marsan, France Musée d’Art Contemporain, Musée de d’Art Contemporain, Mont-de-Marsan, France France Musée la Poste, Paris, France Musée de la Poste, Paris, France Musée de la Poste, Paris, France Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, France Musée Luxembourg, Paris, France Lyon, France Musée du du Luxembourg, Paris, France Espace Lyonnais d’Art Contemporain, Espace Lyonnais d’Art Contemporain, Lyon, France Espace Lyonnais d’Art Contemporain, Lyon, France Technische Hogeschool Museum, Delft, Holland Technische Hogeschool Museum, Delft, Holland Technische Hogeschool Museum, Delft, Holland Musée d’Art Juif, Paris, Paris, France France Musée d’Art Juif, Musée d’Art Juif, Paris, France Municipal Museum, Bat Bat Yam, Israel Israel Municipal Museum, Municipal Museum, Bat Yam, Yam, Israel Spain Museum Mercal el Born, Barcelona, Museum Mercal el Spain Museum Mercal el Born, Born, Barcelona, Barcelona, SpainDenmark Museum Charlottenborg, Copenhaguen, Museum Charlottenborg, Copenhaguen, Denmark Museum Charlottenborg, Denmark Magnes Museum, Berkeley,Copenhaguen, USA Magnes Museum, Berkeley, USA Magnes Museum, Berkeley, USA Museum Tretiakov of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia Museum Tretiakov of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia Museum Tretiakov ofArts Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia Museum of the Fine Academy of China, Beijing, China Museum of the Fine Arts Academy of China, Beijing, China Museum of the Fine Arts Academy of China, Beijing, China Museum of Shandong, China Museum of Shandong, China Museum of Shandong, China Museum of Shengzen, China Museum Shengzen, Museum of of Shengzen, China China Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago, Chile Chile Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago, Chile Loft Museum, Nagoya, Nagoya, Japan Japan Loft Loft Museum, Museum, Nagoya, Osaka, Japan Japan Kirin Plaza Fundation, Kirin Fundation, Osaka, Japan Kirin Plaza Plaza Fundation, Osaka, Japan Tokyo Bunkamura, Tokyo, Japan Tokyo Bunkamura, Tokyo, Japan Tokyo Bunkamura, Japan Havana, Cuba Museo Nacional de Tokyo, Bellas Artes, Artes, Museo Nacional de Bellas Havana, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba Cuba Cuba Académia de Bellas Artes San Alejandro, Havana, Académia de Bellas Artes San Alejandro, Havana, Cuba Académia Eduardo de Bellas Abela, Artes San Académia SanAlejandro, Havana, Antonio los Bagnos,Cuba Cuba Académia Eduardo Abela, San Antonio los Bagnos, Cuba Académia Eduardo Abela, San Antonio los Bagnos, Cuba Centro d’Artes Plasticas, Santa Clara, Cuba Centro d’Artes Plasticas, Santa Clara, Cuba Centro Clara, Cuba Centro d’Artes d’Artes Plasticas, Plasticas, Santa Matanza, Cuba Centro d’Artes Plasticas, Matanza, Cuba Centro d’Artes Plasticas, Matanza, Cuba Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du du Judaïsme, Judaïsme, Paris, Paris, France Musée d’Art et Musée d’Art et d’Histoire d’Histoire duAires, Judaïsme, Paris, France France Centro la Recoleta, Buenos Argentina Centro la Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina Centro la Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina Museo del Holocausto, Buenos Aires, Argentina Museo del Holocausto, Buenos Aires, Argentina Museo del Holocausto, Buenos Aires, Argentina Centro d’Artes Plasticas, Havana, Cuba Centro d’Artes Plasticas, Havana, Cuba Centro d’Artes Plasticas, Havana, Cuba Städtischen Museum, Kitzingen, Germany Städtischen Museum, Kitzingen, Germany Städtischen Museum, Kitzingen, Germany Musée de de Montparnasse, Montparnasse, Paris, Paris, France France Musée Musée de Montparnasse, Paris, France Musée Rigaud, Perpignan, France Musée Rigaud, Perpignan, France Musée Rigaud, Perpignan, France Olympic Museum, Seoul, Corea Olympic Museum, Seoul, Corea Olympic Museum, Seoul, Corea Musée Hôtel Bertrand, Châteauroux, France Musée Hôtel Bertrand, Châteauroux, France Musée Hôtel Bertrand, Châteauroux, France Musée du Moulin de la Filature, Le Blanc, France Musée du Moulin de la Filature, Le Blanc, Musée du la Moulin de la Filature, Le Blanc, France France Musée de Cour d’Or, Metz, France Musée de Musée de la la Cour Cour d’Or, d’Or, Metz, Metz, France France In progress : In progress : In progress : creation of “Alain Kleinmann” Museum creation of an an Museum in in Haïfa, Haïfa, Israel Israel creation of an “Alain “Alain Kleinmann” Kleinmann” Museum in Haïfa, Israel 37

Camille Bidermann & Tracy Oliver / ShowBox Ventures art@showboxventures.com +1 978 273 1286

Avraham Bard /Art’Up Gallery 66 Avenue des Champs Elysées, 75008, Paris ab@artup.gallery www.artup.gallery +33 (0) 695 508 108 Special thanks to: Joël Vaturi Myriam Djaker-Sarfati Daniel and Malkiel Bard