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294
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François Dufrêne (1930–1982) Untitled Undersides of torn pos…
See original version (French)
294
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François Dufrêne (1930–1982) Untitled Undersides of torn pos…
See original version (French)
Estimate €1,000 - €1,500
Voluntary lot
Description
François Dufrêne (1930–1982) Untitled Undersides of torn posters, signed and dated in the bottom right-hand corner, mounted on canvas 15 x 10 cm Condition report: Boxed text: “Fascinated by poetry from a very young age, François Dufrêne joined the Lettrist group immediately after finishing secondary school in 1946. He composed phonetic poems and then, in the 1950s, invented ‘crirythms’. He used his voice and body to produce all manner of sounds—groans, shouts, gnashing of teeth, clicking of the tongue, onomatopoeia—which were recorded on a tape recorder and created a form of music in their own right. He was more interested in the sound of words than in their meaning. Thus, in 1958, he published *Le tombeau de Pierre Larousse*: this work presents a collection of words chosen from the dictionary solely for their sound.
He met Jacques Villeglé and Raymond Hains in 1954 and, thanks to the latter, discovered in 1957 a stockpile of torn posters, the reverse sides of which he decided to display, stating, ‘I have always been concerned with the underside of language’. Peeled off from walls around the city, some posters were transformed by successive scraping, sometimes covered with inscriptions. Others remain completely unchanged; the artist coined the term ‘archi-made’ to describe them, a blend of two names: Archimedes and ready-made. The resulting works completely obscure the advertising message and image. The adhesion, the overlapping layers of paper and the glue residue strip the colours of their original intensity. The backs of the posters, depending on the randomness of the removal process or François Dufrêne’s mood, give rise to a wide variety of forms that may be abstract, almost figurative, or reveal letters. These decollages often provide an opportunity to play with words – visually, phonetically or semantically – a direct echo of his poetic work."
- Brigitte Charpentier
A signatory in 1960 to the founding declaration of Nouveau Réalisme and a close friend of Yves Klein, François Dufrêne reveals the poetry of urban art through a play on transparencies (as, after him, did Ernest Pignon-Ernest, Miss.Tic and many others...).
See original version (French)
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Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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