Collage shortcuts

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I must confess that I am more attracted to ancient masters than by contemporary art these days. I ask myself why I am so fascinated by painters like Ribera for ex. One argument is their mastership in suggesting the appearance of things and in arranging a painting in order to make it stunning. But in this they are not superior to ou modern movies, So there must be more. It lies in the subject itself, I think. And this question has been mine too during all my life as an artist. If we take the Allegory of Touch (Prado) the painting is very unusual. I immediately think of my own workshops where I make people draw what they touch - eyes shut, or let them draw, paint, sculpt without seeing what they are doing. At the same time the painting tells me something about the relationship between the artist and his work: he sees but he sees not during his work - at least I am not. So maybe I am really old fashioned, looking for meaning, for impulses to think. And these paintings seem to me as enjoyable as any comedy on stage or on screen. But why don't I paint any more? Because the times for this kind of art are over and luckily there are many masterpieces to enjoy as forever. But an artist of 2010 has to try something different, like all other forms of art. And lastly these artists surely had a more direct relationship to other humans and the world than our Western multimedia world. And that's what I feel when I look at Ribera's paintings.

In the need of going back to basics - political collage was the first subject of my collages in the late 60ies, I chose news pictures for my new works. If the formal aspect is perhaps not at the core of them, I care a lot about it.

Here I took up a theme I already worked on, but I tried to give it a very aggressive aspect by tearing the pictures I used. This is counterbalanced by the praying hands, something which came quite suddenly in the picture. I then thought of those poor guys out there, fearing for their lives and surely praying some absent god (of war?).

Another collage is the one inspired of a picture of a Kyrgyz wedding and the reportage on the abduction of the bride.

I just thought of Grosz and his caricatures of the German bourgeois - here I am quite insulting for the male ...pig.

The link to the gallery

When I was a little child, just after the end of world war 2, I rember the vaccinations I underwent with fear. So in this collage, I exagerated the "victim's" figure and created a beautiful and smiling nurse - but still with a needle in her hand. The background comes from a nativity from La Tour

and I am still quite surprised by the changement:

Maybe I am on the side of the victim, even if there's no reason - it's just in the vision of the child. And that's what I wanted to show.

This collage (97) has been through many states, that's why I publish it here. After 2-3 days of lack of inspiration, I already wanted to publish here a panel "out of order". But suddenly I got caught by this ad. I decided to intensify the gesture and to stuff the space in the way Rogier van der Weyden does/did. I had a hard time to get any satisfaction, but the final picture is quite dynamic.
Reading a book on the Death of painting by Laurent Wolf (Vie et mort du tableau, t.2), I found an interesting commentary on the way a picture is held together, namely in Manet's paintings. The instability of the composition is made up by the eyes which trace a direct line to the spectator. These invisible lines hold everything in the picture together like ropes. The eyes show us what we have to look at. Thus the spectator is caught, his eyes are fixed in a point and cannot wander freely on the surface of the picture. He becomes a sort of a voyeur, he is no more invited into the picture but just tolerated to be seen seeing and thus submitted. One thinks . of Medusa and her paralyzing face, of Duchamp’s installation in Philadelphia and at the manner by which art has always tried to dominate the spectator, principally by the use of frontality and a eyes looking at him.
This explains the fascination I feel while making those collages with eyes staring at me, but this is not my real purpose, it’s more about tying the elements together in order to hold them firmly together, in order to “save” the picture so that it doesn’t fall apart in its components.

CARESSE DES YEUX
Ce collage (97) a connu de multiples transformations, c’est pourquoi je le publie ici. Après 2-3 jours de manque d’inspiration, je m’apprêtais à publier ici un panneau « hors service », mais mon regard a été soudainement capté par cette pub. J’ai décidé d’amplifier le geste et de bourrer l’espace à la manière de R.van der Weyden. J’ai eu bien du mal à mener ce collage jusqu’à son achèvement, mais l’image finale me semble assez dynamique.
A la relecture du livre de Laurent Wolf : Vie et mort du tableau, ici le t.2, je suis tombé sur un commentaire intéressant sur la manière dont une image est tenue ensemble, notamment dans les tableaux de Manet. L’instabilité de la composition est compensée par les regards qui tracent une ligne directe vers le spectateur. Ces lignes invisibles sont les liens qui tiennent tous les éléments de la composition ensemble. Les yeux nous montrent ce qu’il faut regarder. Mais de ce fait, le spectateur est happé. Ses yeux sont paralysés, cloués en un point fixe, ils ne peuvent pas librement parcourir la surface du tableau. De ce fait le spectateur devient voyeur, il n’est plus l’invité du tableau, mais tout juste toléré dans son rôle d’être vu en voyant et de ce fait soumis. On pense évidemment à Méduse et sa face paralysante, au dispositif duchampien (Etant donné…) et à la manière dont l’art a toujours tenté de s’imposer au spectateur, notamment par la frontalité et le regard des figures.
Cela explique sans doute la fascination que j’éprouve en faisant de telles images, mais mon propos principal est sans doute le le lien des fragments afin de les tenir fermement ensemble, afin de “sauver” l’image en empêchant qu’elle ne tombe en morceaux.

My collages come more slowly these days, they stew as a boiled beef, slowly until the meat is well cooked. The transformation of the picture of Manet (Nana) started very quickly with the first picture glued on in, then it has been idle till the find of the legs. There I told myself that it was a bit as in a story of Grimm, where the beauty gets changed into an animal, but to look at the collage closely – what I don’t during its elaboration, I realize it at the instant when I write it – I see other motives there: at a formal level the fragment and its completion in another fragment or continuity in rupture; painting and photograph, the ancient and the modern etc. etc. But what strikes me most in this collage is the presence of the figure, its projection towards the spectator, while remaining in the surface. It is about this effect that I spoke regarding the Flemish Primitives. As for the subject: a female figure with legs of dromedary, I remain perplexed, as in front of a rebus or a mystery.

Un autre collage: Nana
Mes collages viennent plus lentement ces jours, ils mijotent comme un pot-au-feu, lentement jusqu’à ce que la viande soit bien tendre. La transformation du tableau de Manet (Nana) a été d’abord très rapide avec la première image collée dessus, puis cela a trainé jusqu’à la trouvaille des pattes. Là je me suis dit que c’était un peu comme dans un conte de Grimm, où la belle se change en bête, mais à regarder le collage de plus près – ce que je ne fais point durant son élaboration, je m’en rends compte à l’instant où j’écris cela – j’y vois d’autres motifs : au niveau formel le fragment et sa complétion dans un autre fragment ou la continuité dans la rupture ; peinture et photo, l’ancien et le moderne etc. etc. Mais ce qui me frappe le plus dans ce collage, c’est la présence du personnage, c’est son effet de projection vers le spectateur, tout en restant collé à la surface. C’est de cet effet que je parlais à propos des Primitifs flamands. Quant au sujet : un personnage féminin à pattes de dromadaire, j’en reste perplexe, comme devant un rébus ou une énigme.

The dark side
Some critics deplore the lack of beauty in contemporary art and regret the great paintings of the past (till the 19th c.). And I too admire a lot the beauty of a Veronesi painting for ex. But times have changed, advertisement and fashion have made their own the physical beauty, leaving to the painters the other side, the dark one, the world of deformation. But I must say that the ideal of human beauty is changing from one epoch to the other and that the ideal of the 18th c. seems to us as sophisticated or over done as our contemporary fashion photos.
To illustrate my idea, I’ll take the portrait of the Marquise de Noailles, painted by the French painter Largillière (1656-1746) which a relooked and which presents itself as a homogenous whole, with some allusion to mythology (Venus), painters (Poussin?) and social markers (wealth) etc.

The idea of joining a fashion photo isn’t very original indeed, but very efficient.

It accentuates the idea of the mirror that is present in the painting. The woman in the picture becomes more active, instead of being maintained in a traditional feminine role (hairstyle and clothes). The 2nd modification modernizes even more the picture (the hand, the step foreward).

The final version plays with the mirror reflection and the gesture of the new figure: does he wipe out the whole figure or the face only or does he want to clean it in order to make it neater or does he make a gesture of defense? There are many possibilities. Her just one: It’s the painter in front of his painting. He disposes only of half his own body (half of what painting can cover now). He tries to touch or grab beauty which escapes. Does he hold some pieces of gold in his right hand ? If yes, did he just receive them or will he offer them to the distant goddess who doesn’t need them ? I don’t know and will leave it to the onlooker.

Le côté obscur
Ce texte va traiter de la beauté et il est dédié à André M.
Certains critiques déplorent le manque de beauté dans les œuvres contemporaines, regardant d’un œil mouillé les peintures de la grande époque (jusqu’au 19e s.). Il est vrai que devant une peinture de Véronèse par ex. je reste moi-même béat d’admiration. Mais les temps ont changé, la publicité et la mode se sont emparés de la beauté physique, laissant aux artistes l’autre côté, le côté obscur de la déformation. Il est à noter cependant que l’idéal de beauté physique change avec les époques et que ce qui pouvait plaire au 18e s. nous semble aujourd’hui aussi surfait que les photos de mode.
Comme exemple, je prends la Marquise de Noailles, peinte par Largillière (1656-1846) et que je me suis mis à décaper pour la rénover qui se présente comme un tout homogène, avec des allusions mythologiques (Vénus), picturales (Poussin ?), des marqueurs sociaux (la richesse) etc.
L’idée de lui accoler une photo de mode n’est pas d’une grande originalité, mais très efficace, surtout qu’elle accentue l’idée du miroir qui est présent dans le tableau original. Le personnage féminin devient plus actif, autonome au lieu d’être cantonnée dans un rôle féminin (coiffure et chiffons). La 2e modification accentue encore ce modernisme (la main, le pas). La version finale joue sur l’effet miroir avec le geste du personnage : efface-t-il l’image, veut-il l’essuyer pour la rendre encore plus nette, se défend-il contre elle ? Beaucoup de possibles, dont voici l’une : C’est le peintre devant son tableau. Il ne lui reste que la moitié du corps (de la peinture), il tente d’attraper la beauté qui se dérobe. Tient-il des pièces d’or dans sa main droite ? Si oui, vient-il de les recevoir ou va-t-il les offrir à la déesse impassible qui n’en a point besoin ? Je ne sais pas et laisse deviner le spectateur.

This collage is an « upgrade » of a collage made in 1999 and which I found when I was making some order .

I found it quite interesting in the bottom area, but not so much above. I decided to transform it by changing the face, giving it a bigger nose. From then on, the work went on quite quickly and I am quite happy with the result (for the moment). In fact, this discarded collage from 1999 shows me 1) that I wasn’t successful with every collage at that time and that I struggled sometimes with coherence and 2) that I am able to “repair” my works and to deal with the space in a different way.

The latter comes from my bedtime looks at Flemish 14th century Primitives, where the figures are put in a very shallow space which dramatizes the picture. This is now. But when I was young, I was quite impressed by the Northern German masters and their way of showing the sufferings of the saints.

There is of course no direct link to their paintings, but the question how to figure space has always thrilled me, a picture without deepness at all doesn’t respond to my search. Maybe the deformation of the faces does echo some gothic paintings indeed.

Ce collage est un “upgrade” d’un ancien collage de 1999 que j’ai trouvé en faisant de l’ordre. Je l’ai trouvé assez intéressant quant au tiers inférieur, mais moins au-dessus. J’ai décidé de le reprendre en commençant par le nez. Une fois le gros pif collé, le travail a continué de manière assez fluide (sans doute parce que l’intervention avait un côté iconoclaste et irrémédiable) et le résultat me plaît bien (jusqu’ici). En fait ce collage me montre 1) que je pouvais me planter dans mes collages d’alors car je n’arrivais pas à la cohérence et 2) que je suis maintenant capable d’y remédier et d’aborder l’espace pictural différemment.
Cette approche de l’espace est sans doute le fruit de mes contemplations avant de m’endormir de reproductions de peintures de maîtres flamands primitifs où les personnages sont quelquefois mis dans un espace relativement peu profond, ce qui dramatise l’image. Et sans doute également le souvenir des maîtres allemands du Nord dont les scènes de la vie des saints m’ont impressionné dans ma jeunesse.
Ce n’est pas une filiation directe, mais la question de la représentation spatiale m’a toujours intéressé, les images toutes plates ne me branchent guère, je dois l’avouer. Peut-être que les déformations des figures fait écho à ces œuvres gothiques.

MAKE AN EFFORT
Well, I have been solitary in my house for 6 days now in order to “create” and I feel the urge to make a sort of checkup.
When we were leaving Geneva, I said to myself that maybe I would take up painting again in order ”to see if by chance” before handing over the unused roll of canvas to my friend C. Well, no taste for brushes and colors.
As for paper, scissors and glue, there is nothing different from my working rhythm in Geneva, a part from the joy of listening to music at higher levels and disposing of a much bigger working space. So it’s as usual: one collage per day. My actual collages are more demanding surely because they are invested with the same importance as my former paintings, whereas before they were more a sort of think tank or playground without finality.
Another point might be the huge number of collage already made so that certain themes are already well explored which makes it quite a challenge to invent something new: collages are meant to surprise me!
And, last not least, it’s springtime and when I see the sun shine, I feel the urge to go out and enjoy the day, play golf or just take a walk with my wife. And when I come home, I’d say to myself: Well now you have to make your daily collage. Make an effort!

FAIS UN EFFORT !
Cela fait 6 jours que je me retrouve seul dans notre maison « pour créer » et j’ai envie de faire un bilan.
En partant, je me suis dit que j’allais peut-être peindre un peu « pour voir si jamais » avant de léguer mon rouleau de toile inutilisé à C. Eh bien, zéro envie.
Côté papier, ciseaux, colle : rien de différent par rapport à mon rythme de travail à Genève, à part le plaisir de pouvoir écouter de la musique à des niveaux confortables et de disposer d’un espace de travail beaucoup plus vaste. Donc : un collage par jour. Car mes collages actuels me demandent plus, vu qu’ils sont investis du rôle qu’occupait la peinture auparavant et qu’auparavant ils étaient davantage un terrain d’expérimentation et de jeu sans conséquence.
Un autre facteur pourrait être le nombre énorme de collages déjà faits et que certains thèmes y sont déjà pas mal explorés de sorte que je dois me surpasser pour trouver du nouveau. Le but de mes collages étant de me surprendre moi-même…
Et puis, last not least, c’est le printemps et quand le soleil brille, j’ai envie de sortir, de goûter la douceur du jour ou de faire une partie de golf, ou de me promener avec ma femme tout simplement. Mais en rentrant, je me dis : Allons, tu n’as pas fait ton collage journalier. Fais un effort !

Of course it's the artist, not the food I am talking of. His paintings impressed me a lot when I saw them for the first time. Now, I think that maybe he repeated his formula in his late years. But still the George Dyer's series are great. I always dreamed of making à face like he was able to do. With this collage I perhaps approached a little his creative power, I hope. Anyway he puts the onlooker on fire. As for my bacon, I am still not bringing much home despite my willingness to sell my works, collages and photos.
But as bacon is no good for my cholesterol level, I''ll have to go on with vegees.

Here the link to the bigger view of it.

After a 90`speech during a presentation of my prints on canvas to some people at Chantal Q. 's studio in St. Sulpice, I drove home and wondered about my performance. For the first time, I was absolutely convinced of the value of my works, feeling completely at ease while speaking about them.
I felt so self-confident!
But when I went back to my desk, I was paralyzed. Of course, the hurdle was too high to jump over = being so proud of my collages meant that I had to put the stakes very high or even higher from now on.
Having understood what was going on, I decided to move only bits of paper on desk and to wait for an outcome: either nothing - which would mean a vacation from art, or (hopefully) a new and satisfying /surprising collage.
Well, I made a new collage today. I don't know if it is a masterpiece but it is at least mainstream quality. In my over 2000 collages there are some very special ones that I consider as very well done, but I can't be a genius every day. It's like exercising for THE collage to come.
That's how I feel about this these days.