ART PREVIEW: pascALEjandro-Alchemical Love

pascALEjandro, The Last Poet, 2016, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper. 65 x 102 cm, © pascALEjandro, Courtesy of the artists and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/TokyopascALEjandro is a statement on art and love. It began as a love affair and collaboration between the filmmaker and poet Alejandro Jodorowsky and Pascale Montandon-Jodorowsky. Drawing on the three final letters of Pascale’s first name and the three first of Alejandro’s, pascALEjandro is a spiritual child, a recreation of Plato’s original androgyne.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Blum & Poe Gallery Archive

pascALEjandro’s new exhibition at Blum & Poe Gallery in Los Angeles, ”Alchemical Love” features works on paper that addresses alchemy and androgyny. These are deep, intertwined themes that André Breton addressed in his 1953 text “On Surrealism in its Living Works” writing that in art it is essential to undertake the reconstruction of the primordial androgyne within us all. Alejandro does the drawing, lays out the symbols, making the masculine element; the image is then filled in with color by Pascale. “We began working together following the same principle. Alejandro would do the line drawing with no interference from me, then give it to me without any kind of indication, so as to let me create the colours on my own… Working together like that without any kind of struggle or resistance taught us to listen and to be receptive; to be at the service of the artwork rather than of ourselves, given that it couldn’t exist without the intervention of the other, without that sharing” says Pascale. The presentation includes a selection from the last two years of the artists’ creation, an especially fertile period. Paranormal creatures and mystical lovers dance between life and death; human beings, young and old, from East and West, bring the viewer into a world of extraordinary richness and powerful sensory states. These works together are a manifesto of the artists’ uncompromising love and absolute sincerity, as well as an invitation to others to participate in this world of poetry and magic they’ve developed. “Working together, creating with four hands was our way of giving birth to our child, a symbolic child born of our love, for which we jointly shared the responsibility of rearing, of nurturing until it took on its own life”, says Pascale. Trained as a painter with a dedicated practice for the last twenty years, Pascale Montandon-Jodorowsky’s work also traverses the mediums of photography and stage and costume design. Alejandro Jodorowsky has been at the forefront of every genre he has engaged with, from poetry to graphic novels, theater, and cinema. His cult classic “The Holy Mountain” (1973), was produced by Allen Klein and John Lennon, and the term “midnight movie” was coined after his 1970 film “El Topo”. His unrealized film “Dune” has been acknowledged as “the most famous movie never made,” and was the subject of an award-winning documentary in 2013.

Info: Blum & Poe Gallery, 2727 La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, Duration: 16/1-3/3/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.blumandpoe.com

pascALEjandro, The Essential Point, 2016, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper. 65 x 102 cm, © pascALEjandro, Courtesy of the artists and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo
pascALEjandro, The Essential Point, 2016, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper. 65 x 102 cm, © pascALEjandro, Courtesy of the artists and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo

 

 

pascALEjandro, The Cry of the Soul, 2016, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper. 65 x 102 cm, © pascALEjandro, Courtesy of the artists and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo
pascALEjandro, The Cry of the Soul, 2016, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper. 65 x 102 cm, © pascALEjandro, Courtesy of the artists and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo

 

 

pascALEjandro, The Weight of Love, 2016, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper. 65 x 102 cm, © pascALEjandro, Courtesy of the artists and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo
pascALEjandro, The Weight of Love, 2016, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper. 65 x 102 cm, © pascALEjandro, Courtesy of the artists and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo

 

 

pascALEjandro, Essential Being, 2017, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper. 65 x 102 cm, © pascALEjandro, Courtesy of the artists and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo
pascALEjandro, Essential Being, 2017, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper. 65 x 102 cm, © pascALEjandro, Courtesy of the artists and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo

 

 

pascALEjandro, Alchemical Love, 2017, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper. 65 x 102 cm, © pascALEjandro, Courtesy of the artists and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo
pascALEjandro, Alchemical Love, 2017, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper. 65 x 102 cm, © pascALEjandro, Courtesy of the artists and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo

 

 

pascALEjandro, Paradise, 2017, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper. 65 x 102 cm, © pascALEjandro, Courtesy of the artists and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo
pascALEjandro, Paradise, 2017, Ink, watercolor and colored pencil on paper. 65 x 102 cm, © pascALEjandro, Courtesy of the artists and Blum & Poe-Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo