25 - Claude Viseux (1927–2008)

Claude Viseux (1927–2008) Tree of Life, 1956; ink and collage on paper, signed and dated lower right; 65 x 50 cm; Provenance: > Private collection, Gironde Exhibitions: > Claude Viseux, Collages, 1956–2008—Abbaye de Beaulieu, Contemporary Art Center, June 7–September 30, 2009—this work is reproduced on page 9 of the exhibition catalog Condition Report: Framed “Collage exists to contradict reality. To make things say what they don’t want to be.” Claude Viseux This is one of Claude Viseux’s very first collages! A technique dear to the artist and an essential bridge for understanding the connection between his graphic works and his sculpture. Claude Viseux, the Untamed “Being an observer is not enough. I must take and recreate the appearance of things in another form to better negate reality.” —Claude Viseux Often—and too hastily—viewed as the creator of an unclassifiable, perplexing body of work, we invite you to take a fresh look at 60 years of Claude Viseux’s creative output. In doing so, you may realize, as Geviève Bonnefoi wrote in 1965, “that through such diverse explorations, one can discover in Viseux’s work a rather surprising continuity—an indisputable mark of his personality and temperament. He is one of those artists passionate about technique and knowledge who strive toward a total art, the only form capable of expressing the various aspirations of modern man.” Through a collection of 32 works ranging from his earliest paintings of 1949 (lot 23, *L’Accouchement*) to his final collages in 2007, we invite you on a journey—a one-way trip—through the work of an uncompromising artist. Isn’t that, after all, the very definition of an artist? To devote one’s entire life to creating, following one’s own path, never backing down, always pushing forward, renewing technique, questioning aesthetics, innovating, blending, and challenging the viewer’s perspective… This approach has baffled many; it hasn’t always been understood: moving from canvas to sculpture, from oil paint to Ripolin, sculpting with bones, painting with crabs, combining bronze and metal, returning to canvas then to bronze and assembling industrial steel with thick welds… interspersing this journey—dedicated to abstraction—with collages incorporating elements of reality to form chimeras emerging from prehistoric waters… Are you lost? Yet the work is there, solid, firmly rooted: the marine, biological world blends wonderfully with the industrial, and both permeate every period of the artist’s career. Claude Viseux was born and raised in Champagne-sur-Oise, in the Paris region. In 1946, he took architecture classes at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he met Jean Prouvé and Constantin Brancusi and ultimately decided to pursue painting. Success came almost immediately: his first exhibition was held at the Vibaud Gallery in 1952, and by 1955 his works were being shown at René Drouin; then Daniel Cordier chose him—for his very first exhibition!—in 1956. In 1957, he was honored by Léo Castelli in New York! Starting in 1959–1960, he created his first sculptures using objects found along the seashore—imprints of stones and seaweed cast in bronze—followed by industrial steel that was cut, assembled, and welded, in the style of his Surrealist friends Max Ernst, Man Ray, Henri Michaux… In 1972, he represented the French pavilion at the Venice Biennale alongside Christian Boltanski, Jean le Gac, and Gérard Titus-Carmel, where he unveiled his famous “Instables” series. That same year, he installed a massive stainless-steel sculpture suspended in the Auber RER station in Paris. In 1977, to mark his 50th birthday, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris organized an exhibition titled “Viseux” from June through September. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he made numerous trips to India, whose myths and traditions subtly permeated his drawings and collages, and whose influence can also be seen in his sculptures. A year before his death, while living in Anglet—always close to the water —Claude Viseux continued to create collages blending the marine world with industrial forms (see lots 54 and 55), which serve as haunting echoes of his 1956 *Expériences automatiques du crabe* (see lots 30 and 31) and the sculptures that punctuate his career. The words of Geneviève Bonnefoi resonate here: “Through such diverse explorations, one can discover in Viseux’s work a rather surprising continuity—an indisputable mark of his personality and temperament.” The artist never gave in, never ceased to exist; it is up to us to keep his unique and unwavering body of work alive.