Latin Americans in Paris

For my third and last post on the lithographs published by Situationist Times in 1967, I’d like to look at the surprising number of artists from Latin America who were involved. At a guess, this reflects the influence of the Haitian artist Hervé Télémaque (see previous post), who was a very active mover and shaker on the Paris avant-garde scene, though the list of artists also includes two giants from an earlier generation, the Surrealists Wifredo Lam and Roberto Matta.

José Gamarra (Uraguayan, 1934- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Mariano Hernandez (Spanish/Argentinian, 1928- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Wifredo Lam (Cuban, 1902-1982)

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Wifredo Lam

Surrealist composition

Lithograph, 1979

Lea Lublin (Argentinian, 1929-1999)

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Alejandro Marcos (Spanish/Argentinian, 1937- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Cristina Martinez (Argentinian, 1938- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Roberto Matta (Chilean, 1911-2002)

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Roberto Matta

Musicians

Lithograph, 1979

Antonio Seguí (Argentinian, 1934- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Jack Vanarsky (Argentinian, 1936- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1936

There is vivid colour, here, to be sure, and echoes of South American folk art. But there's also a note of protest (also present in Hervé Télémaque's work, with its strong sense of "négritude"). It's interesting to note how strongly and immediately Latin American artists were drawn to Surrealism. Cuban Wifredo Lam's grandmother was a voodoo priestess, and he fitted naturally into a surrealist state-of-mind, but there were at least two other significant Cuban Surrealists, Joachin Ferrer and Agustín Fernandez. Roll on a few years, and the immediacy and vibrancy of Pop Art was the obvious home for the Latin American artists of the next generation.

Figuration narrative

The Paris-based Pop Art movement La Figuration Narrative (which overlaps with and is hard to distinguish from the similarly-named grouping La Nouvelle Figuration) had fallen into obscurity until recently, when it has been the subject of several books—notably La Figuration narrative by Gérald Gassiot-Talabot (2003) and La Figuration narrative by Jean-Louis Pradel (2008)—and a major exhibition at the Grand Palais in 2008, Figuration narrative—Paris, 1960-1972, with an accompanying catalogue of the same title.

Bernard Rancillac (French, 1931- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1964

Hervé Télémaque (Haitian, 1937- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1964

Hervé Télémaque

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1979

Hervé Télémaque

L'énigme

Lithograph, 1982

Key figures incude René Bertholo, Peter Klasen, Bernard Rancillac, and Hervé Télémaque. Following on from my previous post, all the lithographs in this post dated 1967 come from issue 6 of Situationist Times. But as I have other works by Bertholo and Télémaque, and also by artists who did not contribute to Situationist Times, such as Gilles Aillaud, Valerio Adami, Jacques Monory, and Bernard Rancillac, I will include some of those to give a wider picture of this fascinating but still little-known art movement, founded in reaction to abstraction, and in parallel with Pop Art.

Samuel Buri (Swiss, 1935- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Klaus Geissler (German, 1933-c.1980)

Plus Value

Lithograph, 1967

Peter Klasen (German, 1935- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

The exhibition which launched Figuration Narrative as a movement was Mythologies quotidiennes (Everyday mythologies) organized by the artists Bernard Rancillac and Hervé Télémaque and the critics Gérald Gassiot-Talabot and Marie-Claude Dane, which opened at the Musée d'art modern de la Ville de Paris in July 1964. An exhibition with the title Figuration Narrative was held the following year at the Galerie Greuze, and the French Pop Art era can be held to have finally come to an end with the exhibition Mythologies quotidiennes 2 in 1977.

René Bertholo (Portuguese, 1935-2005)

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1964

René Bertholo

Voyage sur l'Intrépide

Lithograph, 1967

Lourdes Castro (Portuguese, 1930- )

Untitled composition (Ombre)

Lithograph, 1967

Jan Voss (German, 1936- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

One notable grouping within the movement is the artists behind the journal and art movement KWY. Led by husband-and-wife René Bertholo and Lourdes Castro, this group also included Christo (not, so far as I'm aware, associated with Figuration Narrative) and Jan Voss.

Giles Aillaud (French, 1928-2005)

Lion (Salicorne)

Lithograph, 1972

All of the artists in this post exhibited in the original Mythologies quotidiennes exhibition. Major exhibitors of whose work I have no examples include Eduardo Arroyo, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Jean Tinguely.

Valerio Adami (Italian, 1935- )

Telephone

Lithograph, 1970

Jacques Monory (French, 1934- )

Adieu ma jolie

Lithograph, 1982

Not every critic thought the artists of La Figuration Narrative had much to say. Robert Hughes was scathing in The Observer (18 October 1964, helpfully reprinted 17 October 2010), lambasting the artists for their "supine lack of originality". "All the young French painters contrived to bring to the raucous, deadpan face of pop was a cosmetician's chic," he wrote. Delightfully acerbic as he is, I think that Robert Hughes, immediately confronted by the similarities between Figuration Narrative and American Pop, failed to take proper account of the differences, most notably the political engagement of many of these artists. Their idea of Everyday Mythologies was far from the fetishising of brand names and comic strips that occupied the Americans; it was a true exploration of the stories that lie hidden beneath the surface of our daily experience.

Invisible insurrection of a million minds

The Situationist International was a loose affiliation of European political radicals, socialists and anarchists, which existed between 1957 and 1972. The two leading Situationists were the philosopher Guy Debord (author of The Society of the Spectacle) and the Danish artist Asger Jorn. Although they were a small, fringe group, the Situationists had a profound affect on the European counterculture and the development of avant-garde art in the 1960s—much more so than the superficially similar Yippies in the USA. The essential aim of Situationism is neatly summed up in the title of the Situationist manifesto published by the Scottish writer Alex Trocchi in 1962, Invisible insurrection of a million minds. Or, in the words of a famous graffito that appeared on Paris walls during the Évènements of May 1968, “Be realistic—demand the impossible!”

Asger Jorn (Danish, 1914-1973)

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Despite the importance of Asger Jorn to the movement, the Situationists were more comfortable with staged happenings than with art that could be hung an a gallery wall and sold. In fact in 1962 the members of the German art collective SPUR were expelled en masse because of their commercial activities. Asger Jorn had resigned the previous year, but this seems to have been a token action, as he rejoined the next day under the pseudonym George Keller.

Arne Haugen Sørensen (Danish, 1932- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Antonio Saura (Spanish, 1930-1998)

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Yasse Tabuchi (Tabuchi Yesukazu, Japanese, 1921-2009)

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Asger Jorn was also one of the leaders of the Pop Art group CoBrA (Copenhagen/Brussels/Amsterdam), founded in 1948 in Paris. Other leading CoBrA artists were Karel Appel from the Netherlands and Pierre Alechinsky from Belgium. Officially active only from 1948-1952, the essence of CoBrA’s anarchic experimentation was profoundly influential on the European art of the 1950s and 60s. It can be seen for instance, in the work of the avant-grade artists who formed the Paris-based movement Figuration Narrative, launched with the exhibition Mythologies Quotidiennes at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1964.

Pierre Alechinsky, Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Reinhoud d'Haese (Belgian, 1928-2007)

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

The artists of these two movements, CoBrA and Figuration Narrative, make up the bulk of the contributors to the 6th and last issue of the journal Situationist Times (Les Temps Situationistes), published in 1967 under the editorship of Jacqueline de Jong. This issue consists of 33 original lithographs, printed by Clot, Bramsen et Georges, by artists sympathetic to Situationism. It is notable that none of the Gruppe Spur artists are featured.

Jacqueline de Jong, On fait ce qu'on peux

Hanlor (German?, active 1960s)

Projet pour un relief variable

Lithograph, 1967

Situationist Times 6 was published in an edition of 2500 copies. This is a fairly substantial run, but as the journal was aimed at a readership of anarchists and hippies, I suspect many fewer than that will have survived the travails of time (especially as the lithographs were so lightly attached to the cover, itself a litho by Ulf Trotzig, that the entire publication is liable to fall apart as soon as it is opened).

Roland Topor (French, 1938-1997)

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Contributors associated with CoBrA include Alechinsky and Jorn, plus the Japanese artist Yasse Tabuchi, the Belgian Reinhoud d’Haese, Ulf Trotzig from Sweden, and Jacqueline de Jong herself. Another movement of the European avant-garde represented in this issue of Situationist Times is the Naples-based Gruppo 58, whose members included Guido Biasi and Lucio del Pezzo.

Guido Biasi, Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Lucio del Pezzo (Italian, 1933- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Milvia Maglione (Italian, 1943-2010)

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Les Temps Situationistes 6 is a wonderful document of European Pop Art and radical chic, with a psychedelic flavour redolent of the idealistic days of 1967, and a political edge anticipating the social upheavals of 1968. Several of the lithographs could be out-takes from the Beatles' 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine.

Maurice Henry (French, 1907-1984)

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Hannes Postma (Dutch, 1933- )

Mimicry in No-Mans Land

Lithograph, 1967

I have two further posts to come on this fascinating document of 1960s rebellion: one on the Figuration Narrative artists, and another on the surprising number of Latin American contributors.

The myth of Sisyphus

My last post about Max Klinger reminded me that I have some very exciting lithographs by André Masson on the same theme of the myth of Sisyphus. They were made in 1962 for an edition of Le mythe de Sisyphe by Albert Camus. The lithographs were printed on pearly Japon nacré paper by Mourlot, in an edition of 200 copies. The book was printed in an edition of 5000 copies, all on Arches wove paper. The 200 suites also had an additional print (the first illustrated in this post), not included in the books, and hand-signed by André Masson. Mine is justified 46/200.

André Masson, Sisyphe

Lithograph, 1962

André Masson, The myth of Sisyphus I

Lithograph, 1962

André Masson, The myth of Sisyphus II

Lithograph, 1962

André Masson, The myth of Sisyphus III

Lithograph, 1962

André Masson, The myth of Sisyphus IV

Lithograph, 1962

André Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain in France, but brought up in Belgium. He studied in Brussels and at the Beaux-Arts, Paris. He was seriously injured fighting for France in WWI. In the 1920s André Masson was one of the founders of Surrealism, and although he dissociated himself from Breton and the surrealists in the 1930s, his life'’s work is nevertheless best understood in the context of Surrealism. The art of André Masson was condemned as degenerate by the Nazis, and he fled to America for the years 1941-5, where his work was a huge influence on the Abstract Expressionists. There was a major Masson retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1976.

Max Klinger: The Faculties

This print by the German Symbolist Max Klinger was published in 1914 by Verlag E. A. Seemann, under the title Die Fakultäten.

Max Klinger, Die Fakultäten

Etching with aquatint, 1914

As I understand it (and my German is very shaky), this means Faculties as in the Faculties of a University, rather than human faculties, or even the Four Faculties of the Greek physician Galen. Which would mean that the ladies sitting on the rock represent Theology, Law, Medicine, and the Arts. The naked male figure is evidently Sisyphus, and the etching appears now to be generally known as Sisyphus, oder Die Fakultäten. Does anybody have a clue why Klinger should associate Sisyphus particularly with these female figures? Of course everybody feels that much of life is like pushing a rock endlessly uphill, only to have it roll back down just as you reach the brow, but I just don't understand the symbolism here.