Explore the streets of New York aboard Christophe Chabouté’s Yellow Cab

Behind the windshield of the taxi driver, Chabouté paints the majestic portrait of the Big Apple. From Manhattan to Brooklyn via the Bronx, we follow the wanderings of a French migrant in search of ” American dream “. Through the drawing and the boxes, Chabouté tells an extraordinary human adventure, magnified by a subtle and elegant treatment of black and white.

The “Yellow Cab” exhibition presented by Huberty & Breyne avenue Matignon in Paris, unveils a selection of original boards taken from the album published by Glénat as well as large unpublished illustrations of New York by Christophe Chabouté.

New York, June 2015. Benoît Cohen decides, for the purposes of writing a screenplay, to become a taxi driver. He spent his license in a school in the depths of Queens before surveying the city for several months. Driving a taxi that he hires every morning, he hopes to find inspiration and tame this unusual and frenetic capital. Crossed with cinematographic references and interspersed with personal memories, Yellow Cab, is a surprising travelogue around a few blocks, but which says a lot about America.

Yellow Cab, the story of Benoît Cohen, was published in 2017 by Flammarion.

This autobiographical novel, Christophe Chabouté discovered it through his friend CharlElie Couture. ” In 2016, I made many illustrations of New York for our exhibition A Real Dream of New York with Charlélie Couture at the Huberty & Breyne gallery. I was coming out of the adaptation of Moby Dick and I was flushed, exhausted, drained. Charlélie gave me this book and I totally found myself in this story of a director lacking inspiration which becomes “taxi driver” in New York hoping to meet new people, find new ideas. I devoured the book in one night and wanted to adapt it », Confit-il.

[Premières pages] Yellow Cab – Christophe Chabouté

To transcribe the atmosphere of this city that never sleeps, Chabouté collected 20,000 photos of New York, devoured films, documentaries and music. For the characters, the designer relied on the descriptions of Benoît Cohen, with the desire to respect the text and the latter’s adventure. ” I put a lot of myself in this book, hiding behind Benoît », He admits.

With a strong and expressive line, Chabouté captures New York in all its diversity: a sprawling city, skyscrapers at the gates of the clouds and a crowd of people in a hurry. Sober and elegant black and white. Dense boxes to express excess and others silent to silence deafening silences. And, implicitly, this particular way that Chabouté has, in his stories, of probing the human soul.

From 5 to 20 March 2021

HUBERTY & BREYNE

36, avenue Matignon

75008 Paris

Preview on Thursday March 4 in the presence of Christophe Chabouté.

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