Gérard Zlotykamien is represented by Galerie Mathgoth
 
Gérard Zlotykamien was born in Paris in 1940 into an Eastern European Jewish family. Separated from his parents at the age of 2, he narrowly escaped deportation but found himself placed with a disreputable foster family until the end of the war. At the Liberation, he was reunited with his father and mother, practically the only survi...vors of the family. The others remained in the camps. The violence, injustice and perversity of the world left a lasting impression on him. All his life, he would be haunted by these innocent victims. Whether it was Hiroshima, genocide, Vietnam, apartheid, terrorist attacks or the war in Ukraine, each time the artist was intimately affected in his flesh. Why does humanity have such a need to destroy itself?
In 1963, he decided that the public arena would henceforth be his space for expression, a totally untouched playground at the time and one that seemed to him to be free of any censorship. Without realising it, he launched what was to become Street Art. He frantically traced his evanescent figures in the streets, calling them ‘Ephemera’. Depending on the individual, they can be shadows, memories, tributes, ghosts, or all at once.
Gérard Zlotykamien has never hidden his face. Nor has he ever shown himself. Discreet, he has long sought to avoid the artistic world, the media and society. He was a discreet and mysterious man who influenced and inspired whole generations of artists.
For over 60 years, Gérard Zlotykamien’s work has continued to evolve. On the cracked walls of abandoned places or those destined for destruction, on mattresses, cardboard boxes or all kinds of bulky items, his Ephemera remind us of the fragile and fleeting nature of existence, reporting all the possible forms of erasure and disappearance.
In January 2024, the Centre Pompidou took a historic step by integrating the world of urban art into its vast collection. 8 works by Gérard Zlotykamien were chosen to inaugurate this new artistic direction.