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CONTEMPORARY ART • JEAN-PIERRE ALIS COLLECTION
CONTEMPORARY ART • JEAN-PIERRE ALIS COLLECTION
From 1972 to 2009 in Marseille, the galerie Athanor, under the direction of its founder, Jean-Pierre Alis, has carried out a work of diffusion of contemporary art that is quite exceptional in the French artistic landscape.
Initiated in the early 1970s, and then following the movement of the associative galleries that had been created in the 1980s, this work has always been an exemple of singularity and a rare eclecticism. But the galerie Athanor would not have become what it is today without the endearing personnality of Jean-Pierre Alis, without his perspective, his way of looking at a piece of art outside of an aesthetic biais, with curiosity, always with passion, combining sometimes with constraints, handling the wide gap between contradictory aesthetic attitudes with a total freedom, from the surrealist engravings in the 1970s to the most radical or experimental forms of contemporary creation, with a permanent concern for the precision of the tone, with restraint, and with a form of elegance also that does not seek to enforce a choice, but rather to make it obvious by highlighting it.
Jean-Pierre Alis, who passed away in 2020, was an atypical gallery owner and collector. Within his 37 years of activity at the galerie Athanor, he did a work that is usually accomplished only by institutions with substantial means, as much in terms of structure as in terms of finances, or gallery owner that are able, by using the fashionable currents and by using businesss agressivity, to developp hyper mediatised and hyper profitable places. Jean-Pierre Alis’ way of doing things was the opposite really : some artists blamed him for that afterwards. His concern was to show, to share a passion that could, if he had only been a collector, remain purely of his own. And it was this dimension of exchange that cured Jean-Pierre Alis’ temptation of accumulating for himself, of jealously keeping the works he discovered, of a form of lonely hapiness, because he was above all, an art lover.
Claude VIALLAT (born in 1936)
Skillscreen on paper
Lots 88, 89, 91, 92
103 x 53 cm each
Estimate: €200 - 300
« Jean-Pierre is a ferryman, like Charon on its boat, taking the Acheron from one bank to another, on the hellish river of contemporary art » Jean-Jacques Surian
This auction is a way to look at the commitment of the enlightened gallery owner and collector that was Jean-Pierre Alis. From Claude Viallat to Daniel Dezeuze, from Vincent Bioulès to Pierre Buraglio, through every work that is presented, it depicts the journey of a passion for contemporary creation and artists. The life collection of a gallery owner.
*Source: Bernard Collet " Jean-Pierre Alis / Galerie Athanor, Marseille ", 2005 ; Jean-Pierre Huguet Editor
Claude VIALLAT (born in 1936)
Nº59
Acrylic on a trousers part made of denim fabric
Lot 1
74 x 63 cm
Estimate: €2 000 - 3 000
Pierre BURAGLIO (born in 1939)
Les très riches heures de P.B.
Collage and pastel on journal paper mounted on cardboard
Lot 3
100 x 66 cm
Estimate: €3 000 - 5 000
Vincent BIOULES (born in 1938)
Albine I
Oil on canvas, detail
Lot 9
162 x 130 cm
Estimate: €5 000 - 7 000
Pierre ALECHINSKY (born in 1927)
Sphinge se demandant quoi
Aquatint on japan paper
Lot 17
168 x 90 cm
Estimate: €3 000 - 5 000
ONLINE ONLY: CONTEMPORARY ART: JEAN-PIERRE ALIS COLLECTION
From March 4 to March 21 on Aguttes Online.
AUCTION CATALOG
Initiated in the early 1970s, and then following the movement of the associative galleries that had been created in the 1980s, this work has always been an exemple of singularity and a rare eclecticism. But the galerie Athanor would not have become what it is today without the endearing personnality of Jean-Pierre Alis, without his perspective, his way of looking at a piece of art outside of an aesthetic biais, with curiosity, always with passion, combining sometimes with constraints, handling the wide gap between contradictory aesthetic attitudes with a total freedom, from the surrealist engravings in the 1970s to the most radical or experimental forms of contemporary creation, with a permanent concern for the precision of the tone, with restraint, and with a form of elegance also that does not seek to enforce a choice, but rather to make it obvious by highlighting it.
Jean-Pierre Alis, who passed away in 2020, was an atypical gallery owner and collector. Within his 37 years of activity at the galerie Athanor, he did a work that is usually accomplished only by institutions with substantial means, as much in terms of structure as in terms of finances, or gallery owner that are able, by using the fashionable currents and by using businesss agressivity, to developp hyper mediatised and hyper profitable places. Jean-Pierre Alis’ way of doing things was the opposite really : some artists blamed him for that afterwards. His concern was to show, to share a passion that could, if he had only been a collector, remain purely of his own. And it was this dimension of exchange that cured Jean-Pierre Alis’ temptation of accumulating for himself, of jealously keeping the works he discovered, of a form of lonely hapiness, because he was above all, an art lover.
Claude VIALLAT (born in 1936)
Skillscreen on paper
Lots 88, 89, 91, 92
103 x 53 cm each
Estimate: €200 - 300
« Jean-Pierre is a ferryman, like Charon on its boat, taking the Acheron from one bank to another, on the hellish river of contemporary art » Jean-Jacques Surian
This auction is a way to look at the commitment of the enlightened gallery owner and collector that was Jean-Pierre Alis. From Claude Viallat to Daniel Dezeuze, from Vincent Bioulès to Pierre Buraglio, through every work that is presented, it depicts the journey of a passion for contemporary creation and artists. The life collection of a gallery owner.
*Source: Bernard Collet " Jean-Pierre Alis / Galerie Athanor, Marseille ", 2005 ; Jean-Pierre Huguet Editor
Claude VIALLAT (born in 1936)
Nº59
Acrylic on a trousers part made of denim fabric
Lot 1
74 x 63 cm
Estimate: €2 000 - 3 000
Pierre BURAGLIO (born in 1939)
Les très riches heures de P.B.
Collage and pastel on journal paper mounted on cardboard
Lot 3
100 x 66 cm
Estimate: €3 000 - 5 000
Vincent BIOULES (born in 1938)
Albine I
Oil on canvas, detail
Lot 9
162 x 130 cm
Estimate: €5 000 - 7 000
Pierre ALECHINSKY (born in 1927)
Sphinge se demandant quoi
Aquatint on japan paper
Lot 17
168 x 90 cm
Estimate: €3 000 - 5 000
ONLINE ONLY: CONTEMPORARY ART: JEAN-PIERRE ALIS COLLECTION
From March 4 to March 21 on Aguttes Online.
AUCTION CATALOG
Ophélie Guillerot
Head and specialist of the Contemporary Art department
Paul Rigaud
In charge of the auction
+33 1 41 92 06 48 • rigaud@aguttes.com