For his second solo exhibition at the Polad-Hardouin gallery, « Baroque Flesh »,Fred Kleinberg shows recent oil on canvases and large pastel drawings.

In his previous series, Kleinberg had seized the faces of contemporary rock idols. He now explores classical and baroque painting. In his pastel drawings, antique deities, medusas and indian goddesses intermingle with objects of modern life in fantastic feasts.  Fred Kleinberg also explores the self-portrait genre. With staring eyes, the artist, unshaken, scrutinizes a scene that we can’t see. Behind him, landscapes of burning forests or stormy seas, as well as surrounding objects, all convey his state of mind.

But beyond thematics, classical and antique art is examined through its painting and drawing techniques.

A re-enacted baroque spirit pervades this serie : Kleinberg borrows to this movement the taste for contrast and duality. His palette has rich and bright hues, where ardent red predominates. Black and white sometimes make an unexpected appearance, creating different levels of reality. The artist has also a predilection for matter contrast : thick oil stumbles upon smooth and shiny surfaces, where colors blend.

Born in 1966, Fred Kleinberg graduated from École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 1982. Since 1985, he has exhibited his works in Europe and in the United States. He has had stays in Villa Medici in Rome, in Moscow and in Pondicherry in 2004. Fred Kleinberg lives and works between Paris and Pondicherry in India. He is preparing a month stay in China that will end up with a solo show in Shanghai in November 2011.

Un catalogue prefaced by par Françoise Monnin, art critic and journalist, will be published by the gallery.