Magritte, surrealist painter! Not only that. Judging by a retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the belgian artist is the author of a work is deeply philosophical about the power of representation. It was “the figurative painter of abstract thought”.
René Magritte “has tried to prove that the painters are not idiots and that the paint is capable of expressing the ideas or the thought as words can do it”, says Didier Ottinger, the curator of “Magritte, the treachery of images” that opens Wednesday and is being held until 23 January.
An idea, “the reverse of a philosophical tradition which has always relegated the images below of the words”, he adds.
The exhibition brings together a hundred paintings, drawings, and d?archives. Of ?works iconic, such as d?other little-known, from private collections in the united states or Australia.
- words and things -
The curiosity of Magritte to the philosophy is evidenced by his epistolary exchanges after the second world war, several thinkers.
The best known is Michel Foucault, whose Magritte discovered in 1966 in the book “Words and things”, a title that could only attract. The two men will maintain a correspondence and Foucault will publish in 1973 a book entitled “This is not a pipe”, a loan from the table, the most famous of the belgian artist, several times declined, and the title of which is “The treachery of images”.
Magritte will also be in contact with Alphonse de Waelhens, the first translator into French?”Being and time” by Martin Heidegger, and with Chaim Perelman, professor at the?Free university of Brussels.
- Belgitude –
As an avid reader of philosophy, Magritte is it a “true” surrealist ? Yes, but it belongs to the belgian group founded in 1926 by Paul Nougé, marxist and scientific training. Under his leadership, the movement will take a direction much more materialistic and rational than the surrealism French, founded two years earlier and of which the guru André Breton is a poet marked by romanticism and symbolism.
“Magritte’s going to denounce all his life the place given by the surrealists to l?”unconscious”, recalls Didier Ottinger.
About the surrealist French, they have never expressed interest in the research of rené Magritte. “The Belgians have posed too many problems,” notes the commissioner.
- Shadows and curtains –
throughout his work, Magritte has used a score of reasons obsessive. Didier Ottinger has chosen five are particularly significant : the words, the shadows, the flames, the curtains and the “body broken”, each corresponding to a room.
The last four elements are seen in the light of a foundational text: the Bible, “The Republic” of Plato, “The natural History” of Pliny the Elder and “the invention” by Cicero.
But you can see the paintings regardless of the subject, stresses Didier Ottinger, who wanted to avoid the danger of the thematic exhibitions : “bring the works to a discourse”.
- Pop art and conceptual –
the specificity of The good works of art is “to provide all the access possible” and “to offer himself to the eyes of different generations”, emphasizes Didier Ottinger.
After the surrealist, “pop art has been seen in Magritte as a precursor, the conceptual view it as one of their own, and even the artists of the return to painting of the 80′s have been influenced by him”.
His friend Louis Scutenaire said: “1/ Magritte is not a painter 2/ Magritte is a great painter”, meaning that his ambition went far beyond painting and at the same time it has done this project to raise painting to the level of poetry.
“It has been the figurative painter of abstract thinking,” says Bernard Blistène, director of the museum of modern art at the Centre Pompidou.
No comments:
Post a Comment