Page 45 - Studio International - November 1965

Paris Commentary

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for what reason I cannot think-Presence. that the painting by Kandinsky, executed in 1927-
Pop-art has its place in the exhibition at the Musee during the Bauhaus Period-is entitled Missiles. It is
Galliera, as described in the compositions by John extraordinary that this forerunner of abstraction should
Forrester (born 1922 in New Zealand), Roy Adzak paint a composition of which the main theme is
(born 1927 in England), and by Gianni Bertini (born Rockets . . today the fashionable art-cum-political
1922 in Pisa). topic. In his own way, Mondrian (who died in the
Marcel Pouget (born 1923 in Oran ) paints much in same year as Kandinsky, i.e. 1944) predicted likewise
the violent chromatic form of painting similar to that that abstract art would shortly become a thing of the
of Karel Appel (born 1921 in Amsterdam). past. Mondrian, like Kandinsky, has exercised a remark­
I left the Musee Galliera perplexed, and, in a way, able influence on the young generation of Kinetic
relieved to return to the gay, new entertainment of artists of today. Takis, now famous as the highly
Kinetic and Cybernatic Art, where, at the Gallery imaginative and clever artist in Electro-Magnetic
Suzanne de Coninck, I saw the work of Karl Godeg, Sculpture told me that he considered Mondrian had an
who originates from Berlin, but whose work is just as ever greater influence on the art-world of today
well known in France as in Germany. Godeg, like most because, as Mondrian himself told me, when I visited
talented artists, has experienced the vicissitudes of him in his studio in Montparnasse, the lighted lamp­
changing, revolutionary art movements from surrealism, post outside his window on the street below meant
through abstraction, and Action Painting, to find a new more to him than a tree painted by Cezanne !
pictorial expression essentially of his own. Returning Visiting the Galleries in Rue de Seine, I recently came
to the question of Kinetics, it is more than significant across the work of a little-known artist, Antonio

Segui, who was born in Cordoba, Argentina, in 1934.
What struck me particularly about his work was his
resemblance to the painting of Francis Bacon. When I
asked him if he admired Bacon's work, he said he
certainly did, but that he had not had the good fortune
of making Bacon's personal acquaintance. I found
there was a remarkable connection between their
morbid forms of expression. Segui's painting entitled
The Academician brought to mind similar sombre
portraits of The Pope, painted by Bacon. Another
somewhat frightening composition by Segui, on show
at the Galerie Jeanne Boucher, was grimly entitled
Double Portrait of Professor 8. Segui's work intrigues
me, and I intend to speak about him at further length
in one of my next Paris Commentaries.
Alain Hieronimus who works mainly in tapestry (his
Hammes d'Armes is on view at the Galerie Visconti)
has his low-warp tapestries woven in the Picaut
Atelier, in Aubusson. This admirable tapestry in question
was executed to decorate the Chateau de la Pomelie
(Haute-Vienne, France). Tapestry, like sculpture, is
coming back to the fore. So I shall be referring more to
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the competent designers of tapestry cartoons whose
work is becoming increasingly popular.
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