Maggiore g.a.m. is delighted to announce that the contemporary French artist Claudine Drai - rappresented by our gallery - will be the featured artist at Guerlain during the upcoming edition of Art Basel Paris.
Claudine Drai and Wim Wenders
If Claudine Drai's art represents a genesis—something coming to life—then Wim Wenders' video Présence is an exploration of the act of artistic creation. Between 2020 and 2021 the German filmmaker Wim Wenders was so fascinated by Claudine Drai's art that he decided to shot a 3D video artwork about her creations. In 2022 this video artwork "Présence" by Wim Wenders had its première screening at Palazzo Grassi/Pinault Collection in Venice in collaboration with ACP - Palazzo Franchetti and then it has been on screen at Centre Pompidou in 2023. The audience is absorbed watching the artist working in her studio, crinkling paper with her own hands, sometimes with her eyes closed, as if her hands know instinctively what her mind suggests. "Présence" will be on view at Guerlain's booth at Art Basel Paris.
The art of Claudine Drai
In Claudine Drai’s work, the artist makes the invisible visible, the immaterial tangible, giving form to genesis—the birth of something in the process of becoming, yet still without a defined shape. Developing the relationship between what is physical and what is intangible, between presence and absence. One of the artist’s favorite materials is paper—particularly silk paper and Japanese paper—which she crumples to give form and eternity to a fragile world. By transforming the immaterial into matter, Drai creates pure white compositions that emerge from the canvas, expand into space, and play with light and shadow, revealing a transcendent world where certain presences make their appearance. The delicacy of her creations is emphasized by the predominant use of white, which translates into transparencies, illusions, and plays of light.
