Art Of The Day Weekly

Three strong personalities

He had the name of a singer of the sixties, but he died much before the society of consumerism appeared. Like his European contemporaries Braque, Léger, Boccioni, Dix or Frans Marc, Rik Wouters –born in Malines, in Belgium- experienced the horrors of the war. It did not kill him but cancer did during the horrific decade around 1916, when he was only 34 years old. The Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels tell the brief life of this Fauve artist, close to Ensor. From 10 March to 2 July 2017. Fortunato Depero (1892-1960), ten years younger, survived the two world conflicts and experienced the excitement of Futurism before going through a sort of purgatory. He was a real one-man-band, capable of practicing all forms of art, from tapestry to advertising posters, from fashion to the theater. He is the host of the Magnani Rocca Foundation, near Parma, from 18 March to 2 July 2017. In Paris, the Jeu de paume presents from 14 February to 28 May 2017 a photographer who is impossible to classify. Of Romanian origin, Eli Lotar (1905-1969) was as unleashed and cosmopolitan as his compatriots Ionesco, Brassaï or Tzara, worked with Luis Buñuel, Georges Bataille and Antonin Artaud. The series on the slaughterhouses at la Villette remain surprisingly powerful, but the artist’s creativity was expressed in many other directions as well.