Guillaume Toumanian, Paris, Éditions Lord Byron, 2024
1st edition
Edition of 310 copies numbered from 1 to 310
Hardcover, 23 x 27,5 cm, 240 pages
French English Edition
Translated from French by John Barrett
ISBN : 978-2-491901-82-0
Guillaume Toumanian is the artist's first monograph, to be published in November 2024. It includes a preface by Ambre and Alain Moueix, texts by Dominique Rabaté, Julie Chaizemartin, Yuhong He, Didier Arnaudet, Cécile Croce, Mériam Korichi and Jeanette Zwingenberger, and an interview with Michel Hilaire, director of Montpellier's Musée Fabre.
Guillaume Toumanian was born in Marseille in 1974. He lives and works in Paris and Bordeaux. Since the early 2000s, he has been exhibiting at the Fabrice Galvani gallery in Toulouse, then at the Salon de Montrouge in 2003, with regular shows in France and abroad, notably in New York. In 2005, he made his first trip to Armenia. In 2010, several of his works entered the collection of Ambre and Alain Moueix. In 2017, he was awarded the Grand Prix Bernard Magrez for his painting Lucioles.
The Bernard Magrez Cultural Institute devotes a major exhibition to him on his return from residencies in China, in Beijing and Hanghzou. Several solo exhibitions in Montpellier at the Samira Cambie gallery, then, in 2020, he set up his studio on an airial in the Landes forest at Arjuzanx near Mont-de-Marsan, where he grew up. He will spend just one year there. During this period, he will be guest artist in residence at the Fondation LAccolade in Paris, and will produce a series of lithographs at the IDEM Paris studio. In 2020/22, two solo exhibitions showcase his work at Galerie Lazarew Paris and at the Luxembourg Art Week contemporary art fair. In 2023, he takes part in the group show “Immortelle. Vitalité de la jeune peinture figurative française” at MO.CO Montpellier, followed by ‘Mimesis’ at Galerie Lazarew in Paris. He is the founder of MENK, a multi-disciplinary artistic project developing in France and Armenia with the support of the French Institute. In 2024/25, several solo exhibitions will be held at the Chapelle des Cordeliers, Toulouse and at the Lazarew gallery in Paris.
Ambre and Alain Moueix have been collecting since 2010. Their acquisitions focus on modern and contemporary painting, as well as classical photography. In 2022, they ceased all purchases in favor of an in-depth study of the works they acquire, in order, they say, to become their experts. Ambre's literary and musical life, and Alain's scientific research, nourish the sensitive flesh of a collection as conscious as it is sumptuous.
Essayist, critic and professor of modern and contemporary French literature, Dominique Rabaté teaches 20th-century French literature at the University of Paris. A former student at the École normale supérieure and agrégé de lettres modernes, he specializes in 20th-century “narrative” and “white writing”, and is interested in the intersections of the novel and other generic forms, and questions of voice in modern literature.
Julie Chaizemartin is a journalist and art critic. She graduated from the Ecole du Louvre and Paris I Sorbonne in Art History and Law. Having contributed to L'Express, L'Officiel Art and the Huffington Post, since 2018 she has contributed to Le Quotidien de l'Art and Art Press, where she has developed a taste for art criticism. In 2016, she founded Art District Radio, a webradio devoted to art and jazz.
Curator and art critic, Yuhong HE founded and currently presides over the Union des artistes d'Asie en France. Among the exhibitions she has organized are “Humans” at the Institut Culturel Bernard Magrez in 2020, “MUTATIONS: Asian Art Exhibition” at UAAF in 2020, “Équilibre dangereux de Zhang Yanzi” in 2023 and “L'héroïsme selon Mei” in 2024 at the Espace des femmes Antoinette Fouque.
Michel Hilaire has been Director of Montpellier's Musée Fabre since 1992. A General Curator of Heritage and French art historian, he is a corresponding member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and a member of the Académie des Sciences et Lettres de Montpellier in the seat vacated by Bernard Chédozeau. He has curated numerous exhibitions, including “Sébastien Bourdon” (2000), “François-Xavier Fabre” (2007), “Gustave Courbet” (2008) and “Odilon Redon” (2011).
