Damien Deroubaix, Headbangers ball - [exhibition, Saint-Étienne, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, December 1, 2018-February 24, 20

Influenced by both Pablo Picasso and metal music, Damien's art Deroubaix appears at first sight as dark and rebellious. Looking at him from closer, however, we grasp a multitude of other references, nuances and of subtlety. The work of the 46-year-old French artist, in perpetual reinvention, is the subject of two exhibitions in Saint-Étienne (MAMC+) and Strasbourg (MAMCS) brought together in this catalog. Born in 1972 into a working-class family, Damien Deroubaix grew up in the suburbs Lyonnaise, more influenced by popular culture than by the distant world painting. It was at the age of 18, during a class outing, that he discovered finds himself facing Picasso's masterpiece, Guernica. The artist still evokes today an "emotional shock"; he then discovers his vocation and throws himself into body lost in art. He trained at the Beaux-Arts in Saint-Étienne then at Karlsruhe and has since held numerous exhibitions, as well as residencies in Berlin and New York. His works are now present in important French and international collections including several FRACs, the Centre Pompidou or even the MoMA in New York. Essentially a painter, Damien Deroubaix nevertheless ventures into other supports, creating works that are declined, connected and telescoped. Drawing occupies a primordial place in his creative process and, without feeling like a sculptor, the artist sometimes feels the need to go into three dimensions with sculptures and installations. He draws his inspiration everywhere and multiplies the references, from the history of the most " traditional" to a much more current and subversive metal culture. The work which gives its name to the two exhibitions in Saint-Étienne and Strasbourg, Headbangers Ball, is the perfect example. This large format painting is named after an MTV show that aired in the 80s and 90s, dedicated to heavy metal music videos. The title occupies the center of the canvas, surrounded by various symbols and characters that run through the painter's work and illustrate well its black aesthetic and its eclecticism: Siamese skeletons, a bat, flaming torches symbols of a metal band, a Nkisi nail statuette from Congo discovered in an ethnology museum in Boston, a horse's head taken from a painting by Delacroix, etc. The exhibition at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Saint-Étienne will present Damien Deroubaix's most contemporary production, mainly his painting. In Strasbourg, the exhibition will expand to include older works as well as other media such as drawing or sculpture. The work will offer to find all the works exhibited in the two museums, thus offering a panorama of the artist's work. An essay by Julie Gandini (curator at MAMCS) will return to the presence of shamanism in the works by Deroubaix, offering keys to reading the works and exploring the parallels existing between the artist and the figure of the shaman. Another essay signed by Estelle Pietrzyk (MAMCS Chief Curator) will review the reports between the seventh art and the works of this resolutely cinephile artist. A long An interview with the artist will close the work, led by Martine Dancer (curator at MAMC+), witness to the artist's beginnings when he studied in Saint-Étienne – the opportunity to retrace an atypical path and exciting.