HERVÉ DI ROSA Idolâtries
HERVÉ DI ROSA L'ÉTÉ DES IDOLES, 2025 Acrylique sur toile | Acrylic on canvas 110 × 205 cm — 43 1/4 × 80 3/4 in Courtoisie de l'artiste et Templon, Paris – Bruxelles - New York | Courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris – Brussels - New York Photo © Artist’s studio,HERVÉ DI ROSA IDOLES D'HIVER, 2025 Acrylique sur toile | Acrylic on canvas 107 × 205 cm — 42 1/4 × 80 3/4 in Courtoisie de l'artiste et Templon, Paris – Bruxelles - New York | Courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris – Brussels - New York Photo © Artist’s studio
For the very first time in Belgium, Galerie Templon is proud to present Hervé Di Rosa in its Brussels space with the exhibition Idolâtries. This second chapter of a cycle initiated in Paris with Idoles et trésors confirms the vitality of an oeuvre which, for more than forty-five years, has sought to dismantle disciplinary boundaries and to reconcile popular culture with the legacy of art history.
A central figure of the French artistic movement Figuration Libre, Di Rosa invents worlds where the grotesque contests the marvellous, where comic strips cross paths with the shadow of Brueghel, where African sculpture enters into dialogue with the Flemish Renaissance. In Brussels, he irreverently revisits Brueghel’s monumental cycle of the seasons: snowy landscapes, fairy-like ruins, and chimerical architectures become the stage for an unbridled mythology, saturated with colour and populated by jubilant, often trivial figures.
HERVÉ DI ROSA L'AUTOMNE DES IDOLES, 2025 Acrylique sur toile | Acrylic on canvas 110 × 210 cm — 43 1/4 × 82 3/4 in Courtoisie de l'artiste et Templon, Paris – Bruxelles - New York | Courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris – Brussels - New York Photo © Artist’s studio
The exhibition extends beyond painting: ceramic sculptures created in Cameroon and Portugal are presented alongside vast canvases, abolishing any hierarchy between image and object, fine arts and so-called minor arts. In this deliberate polymorphism, Di Rosa scrambles the maps of artistic orthodoxy and reaffirms the legitimacy of all forms of expression.
A great traveller and keen observer, he summons memories of Mexico and Cameroon as readily as the visions of Piranesi or Hubert Robert to weave a fractured narrative, stripped of moral constraints. At the hour of the “twilight of the idols,” the artist from Sète seeks “to reconnect with grand painting” and to assert himself anew as a reinvented master of landscape.
HERVÉ DI ROSA LE CHÂTEAU DÉCOMPOSÉ, 2025 Acrylique sur toile | Acrylic on canvas 210 × 110 cm — 82 3/4 × 43 1/4 in Courtoisie de l'artiste et Templon, Paris – Bruxelles - New York | Courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris – Brussels - New York Photo © Artist’s studio, HERVÉ DI ROSA IDOLES AU PRINTEMPS, 2025 Acrylique sur toile | Acrylic on canvas 111 × 206 cm — 43 3/4 × 81 in Courtoisie de l'artiste et Templon, Paris – Bruxelles - New York | Courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris – Brussels - New York Photo © Artist’s studio
Biography
Born in 1959 in Sète, Hervé Di Rosa lives and works between Lisbon, Paris, and his native city. Trained at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, he began exhibiting in France and internationally at the age of twenty. In 1981, he co-founded the movement Figuration Libre alongside Robert Combas, Rémi Blanchard, and François Boisrond, asserting from the outset the influence of marginalized forms of expression worldwide. His oeuvre, presented in more than 200 solo exhibitions, features in major public and private collections across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.
The inventor of the notion of Modest Art, Di Rosa founded in 2000 the MIAM (Musée international des arts modestes) in Sète, now a reference in the field of contemporary art. In 2022, he was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Among his recent major exhibitions are La Maison Rouge in Paris (2016), La Piscine – Musée d’art et d’industrie André-Diligent in Roubaix (2018), the Musée de Valence (2022), the Centre Pompidou (2024), and the MUCEM in Marseille (2025).
For more information about Hervé ’s artwork and his exhibition, please visit Templon’s site. The gallery can also be found on Instagram, artnet, Facebook, YouTube, and Artsy. The exhibition opened on November 6, from 5 pm to 8 pm, and closed on January 10, 2026.
