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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by Micheline Phankim, Rainer M. Mason and Franck Leibovici.
‘Draw without any particular intention, sketch mechanically, and almost always faces appear on the paper. Leading a life which is excessively facial, one is also in a perpetual fever of faces. As soon as I take up a brush or pencil they appear on the paper, one after another, ten, fifteen, twenty. And for the most part, savage. Is this I, all these faces? Are they of others? And from what depths come?...’ - HENRI MICHAUX
Both a poet and artist, Henri Michaux was fascinated by the exploration of the deep chasms of the mind. Yet his ink works on paper enabled him to investigate internal impulses with greater directness through the instinctiveness of the line and fluidity of the medium which gave way to obsessively detailed compositions. For Michaux the brush metaphorically and physically replaced the pen he used to transcribe his poetry, inspired by the brush of oriental calligraphy. The resulting psychedelic work can be read as a form of landscape of the mind - the pure raw psychic energy unleashed from within. The paper brims with a multiplicity of tiny dancing forms which move with dynamism and liberty expressing a sense of release, as the dizzying sweep of animated flurries consume the paper surface. Yet the delicate strokes of the inked brush are applied with such vivacity that the small vibrations and oscillating beings appear like glimmering flashes, restless forms perpetually changing as Michaux was under the influence of hallucinogens. Interspersed with highlights of deep blue, the work continually forces the eye to move around in an erratic manner. Untitled can therefore be read as expressing the artist’s inner self in the same way as his creative poetry, yet a more direct projection than with words since there is no intermediary stage but pure release through spontaneous expulsion onto the paper.
‘Draw without any particular intention, sketch mechanically, and almost always faces appear on the paper. Leading a life which is excessively facial, one is also in a perpetual fever of faces. As soon as I take up a brush or pencil they appear on the paper, one after another, ten, fifteen, twenty. And for the most part, savage. Is this I, all these faces? Are they of others? And from what depths come?...’ - HENRI MICHAUX
Both a poet and artist, Henri Michaux was fascinated by the exploration of the deep chasms of the mind. Yet his ink works on paper enabled him to investigate internal impulses with greater directness through the instinctiveness of the line and fluidity of the medium which gave way to obsessively detailed compositions. For Michaux the brush metaphorically and physically replaced the pen he used to transcribe his poetry, inspired by the brush of oriental calligraphy. The resulting psychedelic work can be read as a form of landscape of the mind - the pure raw psychic energy unleashed from within. The paper brims with a multiplicity of tiny dancing forms which move with dynamism and liberty expressing a sense of release, as the dizzying sweep of animated flurries consume the paper surface. Yet the delicate strokes of the inked brush are applied with such vivacity that the small vibrations and oscillating beings appear like glimmering flashes, restless forms perpetually changing as Michaux was under the influence of hallucinogens. Interspersed with highlights of deep blue, the work continually forces the eye to move around in an erratic manner. Untitled can therefore be read as expressing the artist’s inner self in the same way as his creative poetry, yet a more direct projection than with words since there is no intermediary stage but pure release through spontaneous expulsion onto the paper.