KEITH HARING & GEORGE CONDO

Composition au poisson
1985

Footnotes

Provenance
Sale : Maître Pierre Cornette de Saint Cyr, Paris, Tableaux modernes et contemporains, 11 December 1999, Lot 79
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

In an irreverent admonition to death itself, George Condo and Keith Haring created this work on July 19, 1985, in a random plea inherited from the superstitious and fear filled terrors of childhood. This painting, akin to a fertile parchment, and much like humanity, carries within it a measure of fragile hope, of carnal thrills, of dread distilled in the veins, and of that irrational surge of vitality that only men who hope, against all hope, can achieve. This work, which saved a man's life thirty-eight years ago, represents the ultimate battle against the devil: inventing an antidote to La Peau de chagrin (Balzac).

One late summer afternoon, Keith Haring and George Condo were joyously returning from a vernissage well stocked in Château Mouton-Rothschild, accompanied by Andrée Putman, when they learned that their friend Brion Gysin was dying in hospital. They rushed over, their hearts growing heavy, then decided, with the ardour that befits audacity, to create a painting together in a mad, magical attempt at keeping the poet alive. Chipping away the hours in a frenzy, that night they laid at the foot of the canvas, a little of their souls' fiery overflow. When they finished their creations at six o'clock in the morning (two paintings were completed), after drinking five bottles of Mouton-Rothschild 1975, they learned that Brion Gysin was miraculously alive. The painters decided to keep the first painting—which went into George Condo's personal collection—, while the second was to be sold through the famous dealer Tony Shafrazi, to whom the painting was dedicated.

Thus, three icons of the twentieth century came together for this piece: Brion Gysin, the subject of the work—of whom William Burroughs said he was "the only man he ever respected", and inventor of the Cut-Up technique so dear to Tristan Tzara at the Beat Hotel—, Keith Haring and George Condo.

From the second artist, this work has inherited the language of graffiti, both in terms of the identifiable elements that emerge from this chaos of lines and shapes, and in terms of the high-frequency vibrations it emanates. The bandage on the bottle, the cups of coffee, the organic viscera, etc., proceed from the signifier as much as the signified, as described by Ferdinand de Saussure. The rays (haloing the eye on the right and the figure on the left), in this respect, are as much a nod as a reference to Haring's radiant child, a pictogram symbolizing joy and hope in the future. It is as if his chalk lines had transformed our daily lives (his subway drawings, with their seemingly simple images are filled with subversive messages), Keith Haring is one of those shooting stars who illuminated the greyness of our walls with his enchanting world; just as after reading Saint Exupéry's Little Prince one no longer sees the sky in the same way.

With a chromatic simplicity crimsoned with temptation, the third, George Condo, distilled in this work his abundant and polyphonic iconography; his beings, figments of mental landscapes, always proceed from an interior state depicted
with a wild outward aspect to become, a few years later, those "peripheral beings" so well described by Aldous Huxley in his book Heaven and Hell. George Condo does not figure, he disfigures. His pictorial approach follows the physiognomist tradition stemming from Aristotelian thought, his exploded repertoire of forms is as much a reflection of Goya's Grotesques as it is of Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland or Lautréamont's world. Condo's voracious gourmandise deciphers the complexity of the human soul in the physical characteristics of the faces he depicts then bites.

The works of these two artists have been exhibited bythe world's leading dealers and their paintings have long been acquired by the most important institutions: Keith Haring's first solo exhibition took place in 1982 at Tony Shafrazi's, the artist presented his works at Documenta in Cassel that same year; in 1983, he participated in the Whitney Museum Biennial and the Sao Paulo Biennial; in June 1984, he was represented at the "Tendances à New York" exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris then at the Venice Biennial, and in December, at a major exhibition at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, "Figuration Libre, 5/5, France/USA", etc. His creations are present in the most beautiful museums in the world— MoMA New York, Ludwig Museum Cologne, LACMA Los Angeles, MAM Paris, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam etc. A Place in the 13th quarter of Paris was even renamed after him in 2018. As for George Condo, he exhibited as early as 1984 at Barbara Gladstone's before MonikaSprüth and Bischofberger invited him to do a show the following year, in turn Gagosian would present his work in 1987. Famous museums were soon interested in his oeuvre: Metropolitan Museum, MoMA New York, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Tate Modern London, Museo Jumex Mexico, Astrup Fearnley Oslo, Guggenheim New York, etc.). This particular painting however, is quite unique since it has remained unseen for so long.

Held by one of the most important private collectors (with impeccable taste) for more than twenty years, this work belongs to a several century-long sacrilegious quest: the will to thwart death. It is a pagan anamnesis—isn't contradiction what distinguishes men from angels? Two artists, two giants of the art world, set out to wage war against heaven, itself disappearing further into an abyssal infinity, while getting away with clandestine pleasures in the process: inhaling the cool morning shade, sensing the sun, lingering in its warmth, and finding the slowly withering soul of the poet, solving one of the greatest mysteries of our humanity: how to stall Time, the life-eater.

(Sabine Cornette de Saint-Cyr / Translation Laurette Tassin)