Gallery Champetier, Exhibitions, prints, lithographs, etchings, ceramics

Our friend Kees passed away a few months ago... In memory of his kindness and humorous look on things of life, we keep here his past columns.

Cultivating a garden since always, with the pleasure of sharing, Kees travels (in our vast Europe) from museums to exhibitions, discovering here or deepening there, from galleries to foundations, going from one to the other with the eye and heart wide open, ready to be surprised or confused. We deliver here every two months, an impression, a feeling, pleasure or anger (why not?), a memory or thought, a few words written on a postcard for you.

May 2011 - My meetings with Picasso in Arles.

Picasso! His name alone causes me to have countless memories of paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, ceramics, etc. "My"thousand or maybe two thousand works represent only a fraction of more than ten thousand works he left us, I am aware of this. I still have so much to discover, and each year brings its share of surprises. Right now the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, then this summer the Picasso Museum in Barcelona organizes an exhibition on the years 1900-1907; from his first steps in Paris, his blue and rose periods to his Cubist experiments which leads to "Demoiselles d'Avignon" when he is only 26 years. The vitality of the young man, always renewing himself through his work, never leaves him, and for me, these successive renewals characterize his work even more intensely than the emotions themselves they evoke and provoke: emotions of surprise , admiration, joy and sadness. . . Even trying to put my emotions into the background, the real encounter with the Master has not been easy; however I felt a moment of near fascination. Several times each year I go through Arles, where I find the portrait of his mother in 1923 at the Reattu Museum, when she is 63, and he 42. This painting, I like it immediately, she is sitting more or less in profile, looking left, a simple portrait, direct, calm, but also with an extraordinary vivacity which is expressed mainly in her eyes. So I was wondering how the painter had achieved that look so alive, I was suddenly thrown into the creative process: suddenly present. . . in Picasso's studio as he paints the portrait of his mother. I see him standing at his easel, brush in hand, watching his mother, who sat a few feet away on a chair facing a large mirror. This mirror, silent partner of the triangle, stands left of Picasso. And I, standing on the side of this triangle, I still wonder why she looked so alert. I think I can finally reveal this enigma: she sees her beloved son in this great mirror, painting with all his love. It is this love that can be felt even today. 

Write to you soon.
Kees

February 2011 - My meetings with Mondrian and Rietveld from

My first steps into the Rietveld house, where my friend lives at the time, date from the time of. . . high school. I remember very clearly. How different from my birthplace house in Art Nouveau style, with rooms of five meters high, suffocated with curtains and heavy furniture. At his home, I went into a house with white walls, in a world of light surrounded by large windows as glass walls, with furniture made of lightweight metal tubing, leather and wood in natural colors. And red, yellow, blue, you ask? Maybe so, but I do not remember. The famous chairs and other furniture belonging to Rietveld that I re-discover years later in museums were probably not practical enough for this large family of eight children. We can again see them, now at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in the major retrospective « Mondrian and De Stijl».

Personally, I feel even more attracted by the work of Mondrian and with whom I would have a real encounter, after that, over time I become increasingly familiar with him. When the opportunity allows, I sit in front of one of his paintings, a few minutes, a quarter of an hour? Other visitors come and go, and I wander around the center of his painting walking back and forth and trying scrutinizing the distance. I love the rhythms of his lines and colors, as he loves music - especially jazz - and dancing with his friends. This vitality is felt in the exuberance of his master pieces, especially those in his later years.

Piet Mondrian, Pommier en fleurs, 1912, Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag

Piet Mondrian, Pommier en fleurs, 1912, Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag

Piet Mondrian, Rose, 1921, aquarelle, Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag

Piet Mondrian, Composition, 1933, Moma, New York

Piet Mondrian, New York City I, 1942, Centre Pompidou, Paris

“Victory Boogie Woogie”, painting kept at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, is probably the most adventurous; left unfinished in 1944 with his pieces of colored tape, it represents for me a real virtual challenge of trying to bring the work to its term with one own eyes! For my part, I need a good coffee after spending time with it. The “New York City I” of 1942 presented at the Centre Pompidou in Paris is in a different register, a kind of master plan for downtown Manhattan in vertical and horizontal lines, yellow, red and bright blue on white. There is so much light! I feel invited to walk there at my ease, taking the time to enjoy all these roads and colorful woven into the tranquil ambience of this sweet white.

So, I enter the painted world by Mondrian, and I have no difficulty seeing the world through the eyes of the artist: it is in fact the real world in which he lived, as in his studio with its white walls and interchangeable colored panels.

His metamorphosis from apple trees and buildings, moving towards abstraction of reality, removing the details, are they not an intensification rather than a rejection of reality?

It is in 1988 during the great retrospective of his works at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, that Mondrian becomes closer. While I admired his fine touches of red in the left corner of the upper part of his “Composition” of 1933, I felt him just behind me; he was looking at this detail of his painting over my shoulder and he whispered in my ear “Yes, fine touches. . . since it is a rose. . . “.

Cartoon Harrys Bar

What a beautiful memory. It's getting late now. Where is my bed to dream?

Kees

December 2010 - My encounters with Louise Bourgeois and Hans Bellmer

"It was in Arles in 2004, at the Reattu Museum, when for the first time I met a very large spider who lived at that time in the great hall of the first floor with a superb view overlooking the Rhone: my first encounter with Louise Bourgeois and with the mystery of her art. Made of Bronze, and so fragile; its enormous dimensions encompassing almost the entire space, with an incredible lucidity and. . . not at all scary. I stood there and yes, I admit, for a few minutes I dreamed that the animal had enveloped me in its arms and rocked me.

Exhibition Louise Bourgeois - Hans Bellmer at the Gemeentemuseum from la Haye

Exhibition Louise Bourgeois - Hans Bellmer at the Gemeentemuseum from la Haye

I saw it again some years later in Paris, majestic in the outdoor park of the Tuileries.
Yesterday I had the new appearance of a Spider; it was reflected in one of the largest water bodies of the « Gemeentemuseum» in The Hague.
This museum has acquired, just a year before the death of Louise Bourgeois, one of her « Cells »: a large cylinder in metal, a sort of cage without birds but with a mirror, a few apron-strings and a body made of twisted fabrics that hang in its middle. I saw, a few months before, in Metz, at the Centre Pompidou, a work of this series; that one also carried the same emotional charge.
Frame memories and emotions of the artist's childhood, the subject of the work of art becomes the emotion itself, making visible what is usually not! Places of traces, but also places of the absence.

Yes, for many the art of Louise Bourgeois seems at first alarming, but after becoming impregnated with her work, I allow myself to lead me into her world; and by a form of alchemy, fear becomes compassion and admiration.

Many human forms of Louise Bourgeois have a double sex and this is probably a bridge that leads to the work of Hans Bellmer.

From my first meeting with Hans Bellmer, I remember particularly well my ears red and hot, because even teenager, I lived in a world far less fleshed out with images of naked bodies, which it is commonly the case today.

His erotic drawings with elegant curves, which give a direct view to the scenes of desire, makes us, a priori simple visitors of an exhibition of art, voyeurs despite ourselves. Photographs as well. A doll, made up of elements of a mannequin display: a woman's head with black hair, a female body, two arms and four legs, on the ground in a sort of splits.

I will not deny that at this precise moment when I am writing this postcard, I, Kess, have this doll on my knee, let's say it is rather. . . her picture in the exhibition catalog.

Enough dreaming, time for a last drink before going to sleep.

See you soon.
Sincerely yours.
Kees"

October 2010 - My encounters with Chagall

"My encounters with Chagall.

My first encounter with Chagall in his presentation of the reverse environment painted was held at Chagall Museum in Nice in a special exhibition; how many years ago, I cannot remember!
I never forget how he looked at me, calm and free, friendly, but also with a bit of irony, this oval head reversed over his body, paint brushes and palette in hand. On the far right of this painting, Chagall asked me: "What do you find, my dear visitor? "There are moments where you can get lost in the eyes of the other and voila, it happened in those moments of friendly confrontation. Today, I do remember that this gaze came from the face in the corner of a painting by Marc Chagall, which the rest is out of my memory.
Obviously, since already for years, I had seen and discovered many of his works, whether painted or drawn, his ceramics and mosaics, his ceiling of the Opera. What a joy!
But through that look-there, he had himself personally approached me. His warm soul, what a joy!
When I visited the exhibition "Upside down, the inverted world of Chagall" at the Chagall Museum in Nice last week, it was again a happy experience to see these beautiful works, but that paint with the look that disrupted me. . . was not there.
This meeting is likely to remain unique.
And now it's time for dinner!
Sincerely yours.
Kees"

Click on the dates to see previous Kiss from Kees.