Marc Camille Chaimowicz

31 October 2010 - 6 February 2011. Tues - Sun, 10am - 5.30pm

Marc Camille Chaimowicz. Installation view, Inverleith House. ‘For I.H.’, 2010 (1980 and 1987), (detail). Courtesy of the artist and Cabinet, London. © RBGE 2010.

Inverleith House is delighted to announce an exhibition of new and historical work by the acclaimed artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz.

Marc Camille Chaimowicz was born in postwar Paris and is one of the pioneers of installation and performance art; his groundbreaking exhibition ‘Celebration? Realife’ (held in 1972 at Gallery House in London’s Knightsbridge) drew upon musical influences of the time (David Bowie and Glam Rock for example) as well as French literature (Cocteau, Gênet, Gide and Proust) and art theory, and his art continues to interest and influence a younger generation of artists today.

Marc Camille Chaimowicz. Installation view, Inverleith House. ‘Here and There', 1978 (2009) (detail). Courtesy of the artist and Cabinet, London. © RBGE 2010.

Occupying all three public floors, the exhibition can be considered as a series of interconnected installations featuring major new and recent works by the artist and referencing elements of interior decoration including furniture, hand-printed panels and screenprinted wallpapers. It also includes a new work commissioned by Inverleith House and part-funded by Creative Scotland. This takes the form of a tufted rug designed by the artist and produced at Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh under the guidance of their master weaver Douglas Grierson.

Marc Camille Chaimowicz. Installation view, Inverleith House. ‘Dovecot (for I.H.)’, 2010; ‘Man Looking Out of A Window’, 1984 (2006). Courtesy of the artist and Cabinet, London.© RBGE 2010.

The exhibition also includes gouache studies by the French artist Raoul Dufy (1877-1953), plates from The Temple of Flora (1977-1807) from the Garden’s Library archive and a painting by the great French painter Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940), on loan from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Painted one hundred years ago ‘La Chambre rose’ (The Pink Bedroom), was acquired by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1979, and exhibited at Inverleith House – its founding home from 1960 to 1984.

The exhibition acknowledges Inverleith House’s original use as a private residence and the domestic scale and nature of its rooms which have played a role in the success of exhibitions by many of the world’s leading contemporary artists as the exhibitions programme itself (founded in 1986) enters its 25^th year in 2011.

Marc Camille Chaimowicz. Installation view, Inverleith House. Courtesy of the artist and Cabinet, London. © RBGE 2010.

The exhibition at Inverleith House follows a re-evaluation of Chaimowicz’s work in recent years and a subsequent succession of high profile solo exhibitions; most notably, COMMA 20: Marc Camille Chaimowicz (2010), Marc Camille Chaimowicz – Wiener Secession, Vienna (2009).

Marc Camille Chaimowicz was born in post war Paris and studied at the Camberwell School of Art and Slade School of Art. He teaches on the M.F.A. course at the University of Reading and is visiting consultant at L'Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Dijon. He is the author of Café du Réve.

Exhibition kindly supported by Creative Scotland New Work Fund and The Elephant Trust. With thanks to: Cabinet, London; Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh and the National Galleries of Scotland.

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