Madeleine Roger-Lacan 

Pierre Klossowski

13 October – 23 November

Atrata by Gil Presti
30 galerie de Montpensier
Jardin du Palais Royal
75001 Paris

The exhibition presents a selection of works by French artist Madeleine Roger-Lacan in resonance with an iconic drawing of Pierre Klossowski. Roger-Lacan’s work explores themes of love, loss and sexuality. She often interrogates the limits of paintings through assemblages and paintings getting out of the classical frame.

Madeleine Roger-Lacan (born in 1993 in Paris) is a French artist based in Paris. She graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Slade School of Fine Art in London. Her recent group exhibitions include Lacan, When Art Meets Psychoanalysis at the Centre Pompidou-Metz (2024), Al Dente at Berntson Bhattacharjee Gallery in London (2023), Entre tes yeux et les images que j’y vois at Fondation Ricard in Paris (2022), Salto In Altro at Palazzo Monti in Brescia (2021), and Cinématisse curated by Dominique Païni at the Musée Matisse in Nice (2019). Roger-Lacan’s work was the subject of solo exhibitions, including Lay Down With Me at Galerie Eigen+Art in Berlin (2024) and Painting Under My Skirt at galerie frank elbaz in Paris (2022).

Pierre Klossowski (1905, Paris – 2001, Paris) was a French writer, philosopher, translator, and artist known for his intellectual contributions to literature and art, as well as his provocative and erotic works. He was the elder brother of the famous painter Balthus and was deeply influenced by themes of desire, transgression, and theology. He has often depicted characters inspired by his own mythology, including Roberte, who appears in his trilogy “The Laws of Hospitality.”

The presented drawing is one of the largest created by Pierre Klossowski and features the figure of Roberte. In her public life, she is a powerful intellectual woman, serving as an inspector for the censorship commission. In her private life, she is part of a libertine couple with her husband, willingly staging herself in erotic scenes. This artwork stands at the boundary between her two worlds, public and private, depicting the struggle between freedom and sensuality, embodied by the male phantom figure, and censorship, embodied by Roberte.