Page 55 - Studio International - July 1965

Paris Commentary

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fifteen years ago to attempt what might seem typical. For him, as for his friends, the painting is but a
impossible: a painting engulfing all the possibilities of means. It is only valid according to its function of
pure painting without refusing to indicate the human what it is enabled to express. And Arroyo has much to
web of the picture and of the inspiration. It was at say. He has re-written the Napoleonic history with a
first the follow-up of the Enter et la mine, open bowels satiric spirit which does not lack bite. He even pushes
of the earth, where in the painting could be sensed the it to the point of caricature. The drawing is inspired by
depths which inspired it. This was, however, still too our school-books and Arroyo uses colour with the
·aesthetic' for Lapoujade. He had to engage himself in fervour of a naif. His exhibition is like a journey in a
the event to celebrate it or to denou nee it, he had to picture book. But his effects, whether they make us
attack himself on the human figure. Recent history smile or grit our teeth, are not involuntary. His paintings
furnished him with the painful themes of his Emeutes are nourished by reminiscences and one cannot
and his Tortures. But even when confronted by the appreciate all the flavour without a minimum of
Arroyo
The nine days airer Warer!oo
Galerie Bernheim Jeune

most dramatic subjects, Lapoujade has never lost his culture, such as this Perro espagnol in which Goya
love for man and the feminine body. Which explained comes to the help of social and political satire. If the
the ambiguous character of his Tortures. first part of the exhibition at the Galerie Bernheim
Today, with peace regained in France, Lapoujade has Jeune is, in fact, devoted to the demystification of the
pierced with his incisive glance the face of some of the Napoleonic mythology which found his touchstone in
most celebrated of his contemporaries: J. P. Sartre, Spain, the second one, at Andre Schoeller Jr. attacks
Gaston Bachelard, Jean Paulhan, Michel Butor are itself, under the shape of an autobiography, to the
fixed on the canvas, not a fugitive instant, but a Spain of Franco. It is not a manifesto, it is an indictment,
summary of expressions. His portraits do not have three ironical, grimacing, full of black humour, painted with
eyes, but a mobile gaze, multiple profiles which very simple means comparable to those of the illustra­
· of tion or the historical fresco. ■
movement as in the old futuristic In any case, Letter to the Editor
h paintin but does the
paint­ disappea as in obsessive Sir,
I should like to correct an unfortunate misunderstanding which,
presence model his not through nobody's fault, has slipped into an otherwise perfectly felt
his compositions b actual article about myself in your June issue, entitled 'Jan Lebenstein.
of the Strip-Tease to wh Lapoujade The Anguish of a Poet'. The theatre, which is mistakenly attributed
confers an eternity in every to me, was the work of my friend, the poet Miron Bialaszewski.
day s of the wh herself 7 My first exhibition, which is mentioned in the article, took place
The subject/painting conflict that Lapoujade resolves in that theatre. I want to make it clearly understood that all the
credit for that experimental theatre is to be given to Miron
in his manner seems not to preoccupy an entire little Bialaszewski.
group of young painters of whom Arroyo is the most Sincerely, Jan Lebenstein. 25 rue des Ecouffes, Paris IVe, France.
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