MY STORY

A PRIVILEGED CHILDHOOD

I was born in Neuilly-Sur-Seine (Paris), France, nine days before the launch of Apollo XI.

My first contact with painting was at the Jean-Simeon Chardin exhibition, at the Paris Grand Palais in 1979.  I was captivated by Chardin’s dead rabbit paintings, and the soft light on the animal’s fur. I think it was my very first conscious contact with an artwork.

A cousin by marriage of my maternal grandmother was Jacques “Jacquot” Soustiel. An antique dealer specializing in Islamic and Ottoman art, who lived in a building opposite my grandparent’s’ apartment in Paris. Every time I came to visit him, I was fascinated by his rugs, ceramics and other mysterious objects. I fondly remember his extreme kindness and how he patiently described his collection to me. He showed me once - I was maybe twelve years old - a ceramic plate depicting Suleiman the Magnificent offering a tulip to a Greek Princess, and explained the story of this plate with an incredible sense of pedagogy. On another occasion, he put a small piece of richly decorated thick fabric in my hands and told me with his unmistakable voice that it was a piece from a pope chasuble. I still remember the weight of this small piece of fabric and how proud I was, to be allowed to hold such a precious and fragile object.

As far as I can remember, I didn’t have many friends before high-school, and I was often bullied and physically assaulted by other kids in elementary and middle-school. I went to school every day fearing the bullies who saw me as a perfect target: a shy, not good at sports, nerdy and privileged teenager.

EARLY INTEREST FOR POLITICAL JOURNALISM

In 1981, two political events caught my attention: The elections of Ronald Reagan in the United States and of Francois Mitterrand in France. As there was no television set in my parent’s apartment, I was an avid listener of news on the radio. I quickly became fascinated by the political commentators and the way they were conducting interviews with elected officials. I realized that journalists and political commentators had an equal or greater power than elected officials, as, in many cases, they could make or break political careers. As a teenager, I listened with passion to all politics radio shows, and waited patiently for each major election to feel the thrill of the results. I would take notes during Sunday evening political interviews and keep track of the politically correct standard answers made by the politicians. I saw political interviews as an art form, and was in awe when talented political journalists could make famous politicians uncomfortable.

I started to closely follow U.S. politics in 1987, following Gary Hart’s withdrawal from the Democratic primary. This single event fascinated me, and I oddly have always remembered the amusing name of the yacht where some of this story’s alleged events happened: The Monkey Business. I still remember reading the news magazines extensively covering this story, feeling the journalists did a great job of investigative journalism, and at the same time feeling sad for Gary Hart, who I felt was rather a good man and a honest politician.

BECOMING A PAINTER

In 1988, I read a book about the history of contemporary art in the XXth Century.

I had no information and no understanding whatsoever about contemporary art before reading this book. This form of art was not favored in my cultural environment, where old masters were seen as the epitome of art, and contemporary artists mocked as leftists impostors in the politically conservative magazines available at home.

The painters who immediately impressed me the most were Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly, Ellsworth Kelly and Lucio Fontana, to name a few. I went to the Centre Georges Pompidou to see these painters’' works, and was particularly amazed by their audacity and extreme elegance. Spending long minutes with my body and face inches from the canvas, trying to feel the artists' emotions.

I was mainly drawn to abstract painters, as well as non-abstract painters such as Gilbert and George, who I admire for their corrosive humor and Robert Rauchenberg, for his political observation of society.

Starting to paint in December 1988, I set up my first artist’s studio in my bedroom, laying canvas flat on my bed.

1988 and 1989 were my formative years. I often went to the Centre Georges Pompidou and stayed there for hours, watching the paintings displayed at close range, immobile, in quasi apnea, my nose on the canvas. I started to paint using oil painting on small format cardboard, then I moved to paint with oil on canvas as well as on 20″ x 25″ paper. My favorite format at that time.

I remember my first visit to New York City in the Spring of 1990. I distinctively remember arriving in the taxi from JFK airport to the Pierre Hotel, at the corner of 5th avenue and 61st. St., at night, listening to the city sounds, and falling in love with the city’s energy. I planned to visit the Guggenheim, but it was closed for renovations. Instead I went to the Met and watched the exhibition The Russian taste for French Painting, a loan from the St Petersburg Hermitage museum. I brought back a poster of the exhibition featuring a Fragonard painting, that decorated my room/studio for five years.

In 1991, I started to paint what would become my specific pattern: the golden ratio black rectangle with a bottom right singularity. 

In my early twenties, I was still living in my parent’s apartment and had no desire for independence. I was a mentally weak and submissive young man, under a crushing conservative and traditional paternal figure, for whom becoming an artist was not considered a worthy career. I let myself be forced into going to an engineering college, and painfully graduated while continuing painting, while I simultaneously studied philosophy at the University of Paris X.

In 1995, I started studying Constitutional Law and Political Science at the Institute d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, and graduated in 1997. 

At this time, I had painted about 50 canvas and 300 drawings on paper. I paused painting by the end of 1997.

PROFESSIONAL LIFE AS A NON-PAINTER

In 1999, I was appointed district Chief of Staff of Mr Laurent Fabius, former French Prime Minister and then President of the Assemblée Nationale (the equivalent of the Speaker of the House of Representatives).

The son of a renowned antique dealer, Laurent Fabius is a sophisticated politician with a vast culture and a sure taste for perfectly fitted suits. I enjoyed working for him. It was fascinating to discover the pure raw power of politics. But I had zero management experience and not enough charisma to handle complex management situations. Therefore resigning after little less than a year.

In 2000, I resumed painting for a few months, using mainly purple acrylic paint, and painted my farewell triptych Humiliation, Soumission, Domination, then stopped painting and abandoned the idea of becoming an artist.

I joined the public administration in 2000 and worked in international economic relations, with a specialization on China. In 2007, I relocated to Shanghai, China, where I worked in the private sector as a luxury travel magazine publisher until 2013.

IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES

In 2013, I immigrated to the United States and settled in New York City continuing to work as a luxury travel magazine publisher. 

In 2017 I decided to use my media expertise, to jump into the national debate and spark discussions around issues that really matter to me. I felt it was my duty to address the pressing social and political issues that were right under my eyes, in New York City: systemic discriminations, white privilege and women’s rights (or lack thereof).

At the same period, I started working as a documentary film and series producer in 2017 and founded Legit Productions. A film production company focused on social justice, politics and art in the United States.

In October 2017, I launched the interview series The Face of America, featuring interviews with philanthropists, social justice activists, and artists. The individuals I had the honor to meet and interview deeply impacted my vision of society and politics. I was not the same person after having interviewed these inspiring persons. The privileged and structurally arrogant person I inevitably had been for so many years, from my privileged childhood to my professional years in the luxury travel industry, had morphed into a different human being. 

I have been deeply impressed by the generosity of the American people, their open-mindedness to embrace new ideas and their rightful conviction that anyone, with enough willpower and hard work, can positively impact society, no matter who you are and what your background is. I felt 2019 was the time to just become myself and do the right thing. And as a proud immigrant in the United States of America, it was also somehow my duty to abandon my fear of being myself.

JUMPING INTO THE METAVERSE

In early 2021, I vaguely heard about NFTs, the Metaverse, and cryptocurrencies. I decided to give it a try and it took me three weeks just to understand what a crypto wallet was and two months just to have a very vague idea of what an NFT was.

On May 26th, 2021, at 17:41 UTC, I minted my first NFT “The appearance of respectability I” on the Tezos blockchain. One hour and fourteen minutes later, it was sold to an anonymous collector. After 33 years of art practice, this was my first ever sale.

-Pierre Gervois