Parigi, 4 febbraio 2026 – Immersa nel cuore di una Louisiana segnata da tensioni sociali e razziali, mutamenti climatici e disastri ecologici, l’artista sceglie di esplorare il carnevale, cioè quello spazio paradossale nel quale il burlesque confligge con la tragedia, laddove la follia risponde ai rigori di un mondo sopraffatto. Luogo di incroci e contrasti, il carnevale di New Orleans riunisce cattolici e protestanti, creoli e caraibici, neri e bianchi, maschi e femmine, ricchi e poveri: è un vero e proprio microcosmo sociale in grado di esporre la commedia umana all’aria aperta, con l’ l’orgoglio che viene messo in mostra e le disuguaglianze riproposte.
IL BURLESQUE SI SCONTRA CON LA TRAGEDIA:
LÉONARD MARTIN, «CHEF MENTEUR»
From January 10 until March 14, 2026, for his first exhibition at Galerie Templon in Paris, Léonard Martin is presenting works created during his residency in New Orleans, as part of the Villa Albertine. The exhibition brings together some fifteen previously unseen paintings and a sculpture. “Chef menteur” a title borrowed from a highway crossing New Orleans, evokes the uncertain boundary between appearance and truth.
On site view of Léonard Martin’s exhibition at Galerie Templon © Laurent Edeline
Plunged into the heart of a Louisiana marked by social and racial tensions, climate change, and ecological disasters, the artist chose to explore carnival, that paradoxical space where burlesque rubs shoulders with tragedy, where madness responds to the rigors of an overwhelmed world. A place of crossroads and contrasts, the New Orleans carnival brings together Catholics and Protestants, Creoles and Caribbean people, blacks and whites, women and men, rich and poor. A true social microcosm, it exposes the human comedy in the open air: pride is displayed, inequalities are replayed. In this festive turmoil, where floats pour out streams of plastic objects, Léonard Martin collected these ephemeral fragments to reinvest them in his pictorial practice. Plastic waste becomes the raw material for a reflection that is both political and ecological, a symbol of a saturated world where plastic invades the streets, the water, and ultimately even our blood. Inspired by the fragmented structure of reality, Léonard Martin composes a series of fragmentary images, between memories and visions, traces and narratives.
On site view of Léonard Martin’s exhibition at Galerie Templon © Laurent Edeline
His works are based on montage techniques borrowed from cinema and literature: cut-up, which consists of fragmenting and recomposing reality, and stop motion, which introduces an idea of movement through sequences. Their combined effects produce discontinuous compositions, where each painting seems to be extracted from a mental film. Each canvas, each motif, functions as a political skit with multiple entries. Carnival, a sublime parody of the contemporary world, reveals the eternal tension between the visible and the real, between mask and face.
ABOUT LÉONARD MARTIN
Born in 1991 in Paris, Léonard Martin currently lives and works in the French capital. A graduate of the Beaux-Arts in Paris and Le Fresnoy – National Studio of Contemporary Arts, he has exhibited at the Salon de Montrouge, Jeune Création, La Villette, and the Lambert Collection in Avignon. A resident of the French Academy in Rome, Villa Medici, in 2018-2019, he was the laureate of the ADAGP Prize (2017) and Lafayette Anticipations (2021). His work has been presented at the Gwangju Biennale, Villa Emerige, Beaux-Arts de Paris, Palais de Tokyo, Lyon Biennale, and Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud, among others. He will soon be exhibited alongside Joan Mitchell at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Caen, from December 5, 2025, to March 15, 2026.
INFO
«Chef Menteur»
Léonard Martin
January 10 – March 14, 2026
Galerie Templon
30 rue Beaubourg
75003 Paris
Tuesday – Saturday, from 10 am to 7 pm
