“Louis Deledicq told me things about the drive to paint that became foundational”

“I took this photo of exhibition curator Louis Deledicq fifteen years ago, he was at my house looking at my drawings. He was always going quickly to look, turning the pages without ever lingering, it was his way of “grabbing” the drawings and of being gripped by them. It was without bullshit, almost silent. His eyes pierced appearances, like a fox deciphers nature. Louis is the opposite of a talkative or pretentious. He reminds me of an old Indian. I met him about twenty years ago, through my two great friends, the photographer Sarah Moon and Robert Delpire, one of the most famous art publishers and makers of photography exhibitions.

I had been told that Deledicq worked at the Dubuffet Foundation, that he had exhibited the greatest painters, that his exhibitions were unforgettable. He has nothing to do with dealers, he doesn’t make money from art. He is looking for artists who make things alive, who capture you and liberate you at the same time. The first time I saw him was in Robert Delpire’s office, they had laid out a hundred of my drawings on a huge table, he ran around the table without saying a word.

At the end, he growled and said: “There are two real drawings in there, the rest you can throw away.” I was tiny in my sneakers, but he was right. In his uneasy way, he was very benevolent; there was nothing humiliating in his judgment and he was right: they were the only two drawings that I hadn’t “made up”. Then he made me talk for five minutes about why I was drawing, and I assure you it was not a mundane discussion. He told me two or three things about the drive to paint that became foundational.

“I drew without stopping; I was discovering freedom, and I was also discovering this little people that I carry within me and that I have learned to welcome. »

I ran home with my failed drawings under my arm, and for the next six months I drew non-stop; I was discovering freedom, and I was also discovering this little people that I carry within me and that I have learned to welcome. Six months later, I called him back to show him my new drawings. There were a lot of them, it happened at Sarah Moon and Bob Delpire, and, the same evening, Deledicq decided to organize my first exhibition, in 2008, at the Berggruen gallery. His enthusiasm and expectation gave me wings; Sarah Moon and Delpire too. To these three angels was added Germain Viatte, another man with blue eyes, passionate about painting.

It is a curious sensation that the things which are so intimate to you and which come to you in a very solitary way meet the souls of infinitely estimable people. These four never left me, they regularly came back to see my new drawings, and we talked about painting, we were good together. Their judgment never hurt. I learned freedom with them, I learned to identify when it was simulacrum, I became myself, in this space that we built together, made of requirement, trust and humor.

None of them ever interfered with what I had in mind to do this or that drawing; there was never an intrusive and psychologizing question. I feel the liberating presence of Louis Deledicq so strongly within me that, when I draw alone in my studio, it’s as if he were there in miniature, perched on my shoulder. »