Jean-Francois Octave
Stalke Galleri
Admiralgade 22, Copenhagen
October-November 1987.
I'M AFRAID IT MAY BE ART
(This is the title of a painting by Jean-François Octave, which he brought from New York last year).
This Belgian artist is fascinated by myths: he admires them, fears them, and plays with them simultaneously. He draws inspiration from art history: Picasso, for example, but also from prehistoric and Cycladic art. He admires New York's graffiti artists and continues his journey through the Italian Renaissance.
He wants to blend everything together in an impossible project—a final melancholy, nostalgia for striking beauty...
IS ART A STRATEGY? IS ART A TRAGEDY?
(This is the title of another painting by Octave).
In Octave's world, gilded by dreams and languages, which he wishes to break through with the aim of conveying the weighty message of the colossal project: Art. He uses words, images, and ghostly beings to create a fusion of emotion and humor.
His healthy irony helps to underline the chaos and clear away the verbose and emptiness of an outdated, mythical, and wearisome culture, supporting a dream of past grandeur and lifeless visions.
Jean-François Octave's paintings are not gentle: they allow neither peaceful dreams nor wings (sometimes accompanied by bursts of laughter) to question this world, where we can no longer find each other and become increasingly estranged...
(So, perhaps you want to become a legend?)
Jean-François Octave’s exhibition at Stalke Galleri in October–November 1987 was mentioned in the Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten in connection with the gallery’s exhibition programme.
In Jyllands-Posten (30 October 1987), Octave’s work was presented in relation to themes of mythology, symbolism, and art historical reference. The press mention described his use of figurative signs, graphic imagery, and references drawn from sources such as classical antiquity, Renaissance art, and contemporary visual culture. Attention was given to Octave’s interest in combining painting with language and symbolic systems, as well as his engagement with questions concerning the role and meaning of art.
The mention situates Jean-François Octave’s exhibition at Stalke Galleri within the broader cultural context of the period and serves as contemporary press documentation of the gallery’s programme in the late 1980s.
The original press material can be consulted in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper archive.
