Collage is a dismantling and recombining of already resolved images of the world. Always revisionary, it reshapes the world in terms that are exclusively visual and that are justified by principles wholly esthetic. It is as if the fragments, odds and ends, outmoded and useless items, of our surroundings were saved by collage. One could say that collage is the ultimate form of recycling, for the things it appropriates are given what they never possessed ~ a pictorial destiny, a chance to outlive whatever utility they may have had. The work of Marie José Paz bridges the two extremes of 20th Century collage. At one extreme are the Suprematist collages of Liubov Popova and Olga Rozanova, whose lyric severity was even more autonomous and less referential than the Cubist collages of Braque and Picasso; and at the other are the Surrealist collages of Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp, which culminated in the theatrical,
dreamlike constructions of Joseph Cornell.
Moving easily between the two, Marie José Paz manages nevertheless to retain her own identity. Because her work constitutes an elaborate and passionate homage to the entire art of collage, she has no axe to grind, no program
_ that would put her in one camp or another.
Her collages are brightly colored, highly suggestive abstractions in which a single object seems caught midway in an ongoing metamorphosis.
Their space, despite the abstractness of the figures, is illusionistic. Her images do not cling to the surface, they play with it, and, like her boxes, they often recede into the associative depths of metaphor or literary allusion. Their relationship to the surface is always one of good-humored exploitation. But what compels our attention in Marie José Paz’s work is the magical blend of sensation and invention that lies at the heart of the vision. All of her work is infused with an immense vitality and a pervasive sensuousness. Mark Strand
n U O solo exhibition
november 19th 1992 thru january 9th 1993
LOUIS STERN GALLERIES
9528 BRIGHTON WAY BEVERLY HILLS CALIFORNIA 90210 310 276 0147 FAX 310 276 7740
Cover : Ring Travellers 1990
La Cheminée Empire 1989
Jalousie 1990
Le Numéro Gagnant 1990
Portrait de Famille 1991
La Palette 1992
Les Yeux de la Nuit 1992
Desire 1992
Puzzle 1992
Marie José’s constructions and boxes are three dimensional objects transformed by her imagination and sensibility to
visual concepts, mental enigmas sometimes bearers of disquieting, bizarre images and others of | ironic perceptions. Rather than things to be seen, they are wings to travel with, sails to wander by, mirrors to go through.
Octavio Paz.
La Cara de la Historia 1992
The Gift 1992
La Vie Conjugale 1992
“Par ses Célibataires”1992
Abracadabra 1991
La Forét S’interroge 1992
“Este Lunare Que Tienes,Cielitomio” 1978
The Cornell Wood Board 1992
es
Ses Bretelles: Espaces Croisés. (Les Blasons du Corps Masculin ) 1991
Marie Jose Paz Exhibtions:
April 1990 Centro Cultural Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico “Los Privilegios de la Vista Octavio Paz” Group exhibition
May 1990 Galeria de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico “La Espuma de la Horas” Solo exhibition (60 works)
September 1990 National Academy of Design, New York “The Woman in Mexico”, New York Group exhibition
November 1990 Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico “Aspectos del Surrealismo en Mexico " Group exhibition
January 1991 Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico “La Mujer en Mexico” Group exhibition
February 1991 Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico “El Sueno de Egypto” Group exhibition
April 1991 Museo de Arte Contemparoneo de Monterrey "La Mujer en Mexico " Group exhibition
May 1991 Galerie J.C. Riedel, Paris La Maison de L’Amerique Latine / Marie José Paz: Oeuvres Récentes Solo exhibition (46 works)
November 1991 Galeria Theo Sala Celini, Madrid Marie José Paz, Obra Reciente Solo exhibition (60 works)
November 1992 Louis Stern Galleries, Beverly Hills Marie José Paz “under construction " Solo exhibition (50 works)
Design and Art Direction by Chris May Printing and Color Separations by Paragon Press
LOUIS STERN GALLERIES
9528 BRIGHTON ee BEVERLY HILLS CALIFORNIA 90210 276 0147. FAX 310 276 7740