Olivier Kaeppelin - Le Banquet de Garouste

Garouste’s work employs a style of distorted figuration that gives rise to a dreamlike space, inspired by myths and major foundational, literary, and philosophical texts.

Olivier Kaeppelin analyzes the triptych titled Le Banquet, in which the artist’s entire universe is concentrated within a dizzying interplay of allusions and associations of images that links the three parts of the monumental painting. In the first panel, we see a zeppelin flying over a carnival scene in Venice. The second depicts a well-attended banquet (Scholem, Benjamin, Kafka) . The third shows musical dogs dancing and flying around a fiery figure who resembles the author.

To unravel the meaning of this work—in which Kafka is the central reference—Olivier Kaeppelin draws on interviews with the artist (the two are very close) and on his mastery of art history, literature, and poetry. The text is accompanied by numerous detailed images.

Masterpieces are infinite. Above all, they are enigmas. Here, we discover all the riches of *The Banquet*.

Olivier Kaeppelin, born in 1949 in Rio de Janeiro, is a French curator, art critic, and writer.