Cours n° 5

Francis Bacon
A painter’s studio; a working environment. It presents the theme of chaos and the end of Art through pop art in a society denying the fundamental questions brought by the world wars.

Pop art artists decide to provoke society, imposing a form of art which proposes a denial of art. It reflects the society’s denial. The confrontation of art and artists is expressed through the question on the survival of art and through the reappraising of a few traditions as a way to demonstrate another aspect of the end of art. The impossible, for the artist and for art, is to invent. Art came to an end.

Xavier Veilhan “Rhinocéros” 1999
Post modern art cannot be analyzed by itself, but only with the use of echoes with the past and previous works of art; in the context of an artist reflection on art and on the artist’s place. Here, it refers to Dürer’s Rhinoceros, an animal which was believed to be made of several pieces of skin. Dürer wanted to draw the animal by taking into account everything people wrote about it. Conclusion: the artist is to render the creation of nature itself and to be inspired by Nature’s ability to produce shapes.

François-Xavier Lalanne’s Rhinoceros
It transposes in 3D Dürer’s believes about the animal.
If it is impossible to invent, perhaps we could reconsider the past and take full measure of what has changed. The real animal has less importance than our perception of it. Art enables us to play with reality and the constraints of representations. Artists are no longer obliged to copy reality because of scientific progress.

L. Freud’s Self-Portrait (Sigmund Freud’s grandson)
It has a tradition in painting which is kept in post modern art. But it is unusual; despite appearances, it is based on echoes to previous works of art. The gesture sends us back to Dante’s portrait (it portrays the artist like the one of 13°C. a kind of guide to face the horror). Shoes are similar to Van Gogh’s meaning that an artist, by essence, is forced to step into Van Gogh’s shoes; to be overwhelmed by despair in a society on which artists are solitary and desperate souls. The artist accepts to renounce every element attached to appearances (naked) with, in the end, no protection and no social attribute.

Francis Bacon’s “Pope Innocent X”
It is a representation of catholic clergymen in general with no precise technique. It is curious and provocative. It is a copy of Velasquez' and it also refers to the 17°century Titien’s Pope Paul the Third with the dramatic opportunity to observe and to face the change operated in the mid time in the conception of the spiritual authority after the experiences of the 20° century. It imposes the urgent questions society tends to forget.

“Copy” of Van Gogh’s self portrait
It gives Bacon’s vision of Van Gogh’s vision of himself. The dialog connects the to social and existential thus maintaining a form of survival.
Monochrome is a painting one could observe indefinitely. It implies to lose oneself into the color. It has many interpretations.

From fragmentation to traces = what remains
A coming back to the very origins of the use of color and resumes the attitude of prehistoric ancestors. It is a primitive interpretation of the history of art.
Mark Rothko’s work on Martin Luther King’s chapel is an expression of silence and meditation on mankind, history, art. “There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing… the subject is crucial and only that subject matter is valid which is timeless and tragic”. It is an experience in itself to find oneself I front of a huge monochrome. Human consciousness has just one color: black (an absence of color). Rothko also uses families of color.

Artist is in search of new media, new materials. So far, it only concerned studios and traditional materials (paint, metal, marble…). Post modernism is a dialog with the past and its exploration. In order to survive, the form of art found more concrete materials.

Anthony Gormley’s “Sense”
It is a concrete block with a hole (as a head) and traces of hands. It represents a post modern confinement and immobility.

Dan Flavin uses light, building shapes and thusly new sensations of space.

Damian Hirst’s “Mother and Child”
It is made of two cows each split into two parts. The subject is horror which visitors accept concerning animals (and, in parallel, concerning mankind with the extermination camps). Its role is to disturb, to maintain important questions alive.

it was the "pope Innocent X" and it is a copy of Velasquez's one
et au début c'est bien francis baker que tu veux cité?ça me dit rien...parce que sinon y a francis bacon, hum?

En effet, c'est bien Francis Bacon, LPM a flanché :v

juste aussi c'est anthony gormley

une copie de Velasquez, mais je laisse ce que j'ai mit sur le Titien ou j'y (bourgogne powaaa) enlève ?

nan nan je crois que c'est t'y les deux, c'est un peu comme une parodie de toutes les peintures de les papes tu y vois?
^^

Ok, ça marche !
Danke schööön ^^