Jacques Roch
Ma Jolie – a retrospective
January 07 - February 16, 2019
Ma Jolie
Press Release
Jacques Roch (1934-2015) was born in Lyon, France. After studying at the renowned Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Roch made a name for himself during the ’60s with his rebellious comic strips that populated Paris’ underground newspapers. In 1979, Roch moved to New York and began to concentrate on painting. The intensity of street life and the culture of graffiti were new influences and he responded by developing a world of line drawn characters playing out their inner psychic tensions. As a result, Roch had his first show in New York in 1983, curated by Cathy Goncharov. This was followed by shows in the East Village. In 1990 a 10-year survey show of his work was held at Exit Art. This show was the inspiration for an article by the art critic Robert C.Morgan,“After the Deluge, the Return of the Inner Directed Artist” published in 1992.
Ma Jolie, a retrospective, will be Roch’s ninth solo exhibition at the Kim Foster Gallery. Accompanying the exhibition are essays written by Denise Carvalho and Dominique Nahas. The show presents a selection of never before seen drawings from the 1970’s as well as large acrylics from the 1990’s (including Ma Jolie and Love Story) and concluding with two small paintings from 2013: The Lucky Knight and La Belle Dame.
Roch’s paintings told a narrative that came close to the edge of a nightmarish darkness, taking a last minute playful turn with sexual daydreams and humorous, childlike doodles. His motley crew of cartoon characters, repetitively applied through silkscreen, had a disruptive presence and was a prominent layer in his paintings, juxtaposed with strange parable like phrases. Roch’s use of acid hued color introduced light and space. He created a world where a host of tragicomic characters cavorted and conspired. These works were laden with psychic goodies, even if specific meanings eluded us.
Excerpt from essay by Dominique Nahas published in D’Art Magazine January 2019
. . In these selected artworks extending over decades we feel from the very beginning that Roch engendered an intense vision of play-filled lubricity and turmoil, topped-off with a mixture of frenzy and sensuous delight. His complex vision, while it entices and charms with its surfeit of jitteriness and pliability, has equal parts smoothness and scratchiness and darkness. His imagery (like gnats buzzing at your face, a thousand little tongues haptically engaging your eyes and mind) offers us something strangely comical, yet insistently askew. His feverish imagery (a lot of encrypted doodles, naughty bits, monsters and imaginary beasts, private formulations pertaining to the insouciant pleasures of voyeurism and the carnal) straddle coherency and chaos, control and dissolution . .
Excerpt from essay by Denise Carvalho
Jacques Roch’s posthumous exhibition, “Ma Jolie,” showcases the artist’s visual idiom through unprecedented brilliance and fluidity. His ever so fresh and liberating palette and compositions appear indelibly wondrous, even to those who have followed his work over decades, as the paintings continue to redefine our ability to perceive and interpret the artist’s world. Some of the works depict a floating perspective into macrocosms of linear potentialities, semi-organic, semi-architectural, machine-like forms, presenting us with the question on the time of paintings, which exceeds our time as it continues to echo their own imaginative consciousness . .
ARTEIDOLIA February 2019 review by Ron Morosan
…There is a distinct existential dialogue going on, a self dialogue, or talking to himself, that takes place in his painting and this adds a presence to the work that puts in into the company of such artists as Paul Klee and Odilion Redon. The voice of the artist is clearly present in Jacques’ work and contributes to its power. In this way it is distinctly an artist’s art; it claims the territory of art as an artist’s language and doesn’t seek to serve an external objective world or a popular media world…
Biography
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019 / 2013 / 2011 / 2008 / 2005 / 2003 / 2001 / 1998 / 1996 Kim Foster Gallery, NYC
2013 Art 101, Brooklyn
2012 Plume 21, Seattle‘
2010 Galerie Carla Magna, Paris
2009 Side Show Gallery, Williamsburg, NY with Tony Roch
1990 Exit Art, NYC ‘Ten Years of Painting in New York City’
1986 Howard Scott M-13 Gallery, NYC
1985 Exit Art, Ringside Gallery, NYC
1985 Facchetti-Burk Gallery, NYC
1976 Drian Galleries, London, England
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2006 ‘Menage a Trois’ Holland Tunnel Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2005 ‘The Labyrinth’ Holland Tunnel Gallery, Paros-Greece
2004 ‘Christmas Show’ Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2003 ‘A Passion for Collecting: Selections from the Rothfeld Gift’ Martin Art Gallery, Muhlenberg College, PA
2003 ‘clear intentions’ The Rotunda Gallery, Brooklyn, NY curated by Robert C. Morgan
2003 ‘Outside Harry’s House’ Zeeuwse Bibliotheek, Middelburg, Holland
2003 ‘Five Year Anniversary Show’ Holland Tunnel, NY
2001 ‘718 Brooklyn!’ curated by Michael Rush & Dominique Nahas, Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, FL
2000 ‘The Figure: Another Side of Modernism, Paintings from 1950 to the Present,’ Snug Harbor Cultural Center curated by Lilly Wei
1999 Center for Metamedia, Hermit Foundation, Czech Republic
1999 New Tide, De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam
1998 Mega Salon, Portrait Show, Tod Jorgensen Gallery, New York
1998 White Box Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1998 Un Coup de des Varik Gallery, New York
1998 Side Show Gallery, Works on Paper, Williamsburg, NY
1998 Chi Meat, Williamsburg, New York
1997 Year End Ensemble, Watercolors by Jacques Roch, Williamsburg Art Center, NY
1996 Chi Meat, Williamsburg, New York
1995 Pick Four, Kim Foster Gallery, NYC
1995 Trans-Hudson Gallery, Jersey City, NJ
1995 Perogi 2000 at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NYC
1994 Symbolic Surface, Klarfeld Perry Gallery curated by Robert Morgan, NYC
1994 Drop Dead Painting curated by John Ford, NYC
1994 Private Obsessions, Lorraine Kessler Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY
1994 Selection of Artists from Art Omi Colony, Lorraine Kessler Gallery
1993 Art Omi Colony, Omi, NY
1993 The Sublime Banana Peel, B4A Gallery, NY
1991 Burning in Hell, Franklin Furnace, NYC
1990 International Prints Show, Holland Tunnel, Paris traveled to Greece
1986 Trans Cultural Trans Media, Exit Art, NYC
1986 Consensus, Exit Art, NYC
1985 Selections by Kay Larson, Artist Space, NYC
1985 Five French Artist Living in New York, French Embassy, NYC
1984 Proctor Art Center, Bard College, Annandale on Hudson, NY
1984 Five Artists, Galerie Paul Facchetti, Zurich, Switzerland
1984 East of East Village, Dramatis Personae Gallery, NYC
1984 Erotic Fan Show, Jon Leon Gallery, NYC
1983 Window Installation, French Tourist Bureau, NYC
1983 Just Above Midtown, Downtown, NYC
1981 Recent Abstraction, Proctor Art Center, Bard College, Annandale on Hudson, NY
1977 Maison de la Culture, Des Amandiers, Paris, France
1975 Artistes du 20eme Arrondissement, Paris, France
1965 Salon Scheme, Paris, France
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Morosan, Ron, Jacques Roch: Ma Jolie, ARTEIDOLIA, February 2019
Nahas, Dominique, “The Rich Imagination of Jacques Roch: Sensuousness and Impertenent Play” January 2019
Carvalho, Denise, “Jacques Roch” essay, 2019
Carvalho, Denise, “Jacques Roch” Art In America, November 2008
Morgan, Robert C., “Painting the Blues a la Francaise: A Brief Survey of Jacques Roch” catalogue, 2005
Nahas, Dominique, “Jacques Roch” catalogue, 2005
Wei, Lilly, “The Figure: Another Side of Modernism,” Snug Harbor Cultural Center, catalogue, 2000
Carvalho, Denise, “Fairy-Tales,” Center for Metamedia, 1999
Harris, Jane, “Jacques Roch” Art In America, May 1999
Morgan, Robert C., The End of the Art World, published by Allworth Press, 1998
Morgan, Robert C., “Jacques Roch” Art Press, February 1997
Landi, Ann, “Jacques Roch” ARTnews, December 1996
Nahas, Dominique, “Jacques Roch” Review, December 1, 1996
Morgan, Robert C., “Doric Column” Cover, March 1995
Morgan, Robert C., Catalogue Essay Symbolic Surface Klarfeld Perry Gallery, NYC 1994
Morgan, Robert C., “After the Deluge, The Return of the Inner Directed Artist” Arts Magazine March 1992
“Goings on About Town” The New Yorker June 1990
Larson, Kay, Catalogue Essay, Selections, Artist Space, NYC 1985
Cameron, Dan., Review, Arts Magazine Fall 1985
WORKS ON VIEW
1976 Mosaic on Cement Forms, College of Belfort, Belfort, France
1976 Painted Sculpture, College of Brive, Brive LaGaillarde, France
1971 Mural Painting/Family Crests, Salon de The, Chateau de Brreteuil, Valle de Chevreuse.
1970 Mosaic, College de Tours, Tours, France
1968 Sculpture photographed for promotion by Air France, Paris, France
1967 Mural Painting, Social Security Building, Charieville, France
1966 Mosaic, College Aulnay Sous Bois, Paris, France
ILLUSTRATIONS / CARTOONS
1971 Paris Ville Peige book of drawings, Published by A Balland, Paris, France
1973-77 Comics and drawings published in “Pilote,” “Charlie Mensuel,” “Hara Kiri,” “Pourquoi,” Paris, France
1978-80 Comics Published in “Playboy,” “Heavy Metal,” “The New York Times,” NYC
1999 The Dream of the Unicorn, book of drawings with text.
2001 Good Heavens! erotic pasta & fruity salad cookbook, published by Holland Tunnel Art Project
EDUCATION
Beaux Arts de Lyons
Beaux Arts de Paris