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Lot Essay
We respect the ancient for surviving the ravages of time, retaining a timeless presence and for making us believe in the eternal. Wisdom of our ancestors lives through us long after we have been gone and forgotten. Our ancestors, our original parents from many generations ago, left in us primal knowledge awaiting activation by a wakeful mind. Such mind has the ability to establish a crossable border between the physical and the metaphysical and make extraordinary contributions to humankind. Surrealist Wolfgang Paalen was among the illuminated who, early in his life, was called to pass on the torch of metaphysical knowledge through his art and theoretical writings.
Prior to arriving in Mexico in 1939, Wolfgang Paalen spent time fulfilling a lifetime wish to visit the Northwest coast of the American Continent. Traveling through Southeast Alaska and British Columbia provided him the opportunity to study totem art - art that specifically pays homage to ancestors - created by the tribal cultures from the region. Ancestor worship was the way to keep in contact with etheric world intelligence. Having lived many lives, ancestral bodies understood the needs of the universe and could offer instructions to bring protection, abundance, and guidance to the tribe. Paalen's interest in the subject began during his Austrian childhood when he and his brothers played "Indians," influenced by the romantic novels of Karl May. In these adventures, a Teutonic superhero comes through victorious from hostile encounters against Indian tribes. In his game playing, Paalen preferred the role of the 'medicine man' that had access to invisible intelligence and was also in charge of applying war paint to the other members of the tribe. In many canvases produced following his visit to the Northwest, Paalen's application of paint - in flat, mosaic - like brushstrokes placed within a monochromatic background - follows the painting technique used by the Amerindian tribes.
Ancêtres a venir (1947) belongs to a series of works in which Paalen explores the passing down of primal knowledge from generation to generation. Six ancestors are present during the event. Three stand in the background while three in the foreground are the active participants. The ancestor in the middle, who represents the Present, is energized into creating a partnership with each ancestor to its side. The Present's head, marked by a red dot, establishes a chain of energy that enters between the arm that touches one ancestor and passes through the other arm toward the second. The sender represents the Past passing primal knowledge through the Present toward the one that represents the Future. The process is continuously renewed, generation after generation.
The series of paintings relevant to ancestors that Paalen created during 1947 appear to be related to a series of works that Paalen began exactly ten years earlier (1937-1940), paintings in which he created his personal version of the symbolic tree of his ancestors. As both cycles were created specifically when Paalen and Rahon's marriage seemed to be coming to an end, they appear to have been triggered and related to the event. In the winter of 1936-1937, Paalen discovered Rahon and Picasso were having an affair. He threatened suicide if she did not end the liaison; she ended it. Following this event, Paalen began the series known as Totemic Landscape of my Childhood. In 1947, exactly ten years later, when Paalen and Rahon divorced, he produced three versions of Ancêtres a venir and the related Futurs personnages ancêtreux. In both series, a Paalen in conflict over his relationship with Rahon seeks invisible intelligence to counsel and guide him.
Salomon Grimberg
Dallas, Texas, April 2006
Prior to arriving in Mexico in 1939, Wolfgang Paalen spent time fulfilling a lifetime wish to visit the Northwest coast of the American Continent. Traveling through Southeast Alaska and British Columbia provided him the opportunity to study totem art - art that specifically pays homage to ancestors - created by the tribal cultures from the region. Ancestor worship was the way to keep in contact with etheric world intelligence. Having lived many lives, ancestral bodies understood the needs of the universe and could offer instructions to bring protection, abundance, and guidance to the tribe. Paalen's interest in the subject began during his Austrian childhood when he and his brothers played "Indians," influenced by the romantic novels of Karl May. In these adventures, a Teutonic superhero comes through victorious from hostile encounters against Indian tribes. In his game playing, Paalen preferred the role of the 'medicine man' that had access to invisible intelligence and was also in charge of applying war paint to the other members of the tribe. In many canvases produced following his visit to the Northwest, Paalen's application of paint - in flat, mosaic - like brushstrokes placed within a monochromatic background - follows the painting technique used by the Amerindian tribes.
Ancêtres a venir (1947) belongs to a series of works in which Paalen explores the passing down of primal knowledge from generation to generation. Six ancestors are present during the event. Three stand in the background while three in the foreground are the active participants. The ancestor in the middle, who represents the Present, is energized into creating a partnership with each ancestor to its side. The Present's head, marked by a red dot, establishes a chain of energy that enters between the arm that touches one ancestor and passes through the other arm toward the second. The sender represents the Past passing primal knowledge through the Present toward the one that represents the Future. The process is continuously renewed, generation after generation.
The series of paintings relevant to ancestors that Paalen created during 1947 appear to be related to a series of works that Paalen began exactly ten years earlier (1937-1940), paintings in which he created his personal version of the symbolic tree of his ancestors. As both cycles were created specifically when Paalen and Rahon's marriage seemed to be coming to an end, they appear to have been triggered and related to the event. In the winter of 1936-1937, Paalen discovered Rahon and Picasso were having an affair. He threatened suicide if she did not end the liaison; she ended it. Following this event, Paalen began the series known as Totemic Landscape of my Childhood. In 1947, exactly ten years later, when Paalen and Rahon divorced, he produced three versions of Ancêtres a venir and the related Futurs personnages ancêtreux. In both series, a Paalen in conflict over his relationship with Rahon seeks invisible intelligence to counsel and guide him.
Salomon Grimberg
Dallas, Texas, April 2006