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• de Leningrad supportés par le monstre latter. Through these works, Errô not only Errô's painting, through his Autoportrait and interior scenes tram the 1940s-are • daltonien Matisse. demonstrates his knowledge of these au maillot rayé (Self-portrait in a striped also used by Errô in a number of the oth The selection of Matisse's work featured subjects, he also uses his own language T-shirt) !rom 1906 and the Portrait de er Matisse-inspired creations mentioned • in Errô's painting is sufficientlywide-rang to translate this history of art, which others Matisse (Portrait of Henri Matisse) paint above. ln 2007, the 1991 composition ing to be representative of his produc have spent pages and pages attempting ed by André Derain in 1905. The artist's was reused in unambiguously decora • Grands tion as a whole, !rom the Fauvist years to explain. ln Les Fauvesthe artist image is also present in other works by tive intent, when Errô wrapped it around a to his final paper eut-outs in the 1950s. allers a mischievous take on the famous Errô; in his 1986 Portrait of Matisse and mysterious box. How should this be inter • Hommage And yet, this non-chronological pres remark made by art critic Louis Vaux 1987 à Matisse (Hamage to preted? The symbolic richness of the ob • entation, toing and froing between early celles-"Donatello chez les fauves" (Do Matisse), the lslandic painter, with his ject allows us to view it, turn by turn, as a works and those from the end of his ca natello among the wild beasts)-when unexpected, larger than lite, and some metaphor for a treasure chest, a memorial • reer, does not create confusion: on the evoking the strange contras! created times provocative combinations of motifs, vessel, or, more prosaically, a suggestion contrary, it reveals Matisse's rich talent by presenting Albert Marque's highly seems to want to contrant the stern but box, serving as inspiration !rom time to • and consistency in developing his art, classical sculpture amidst the deluge fair countenance of the very serious Mr time. This box is one of Errô's last works consolidating his beliefs, and success of colours in paintings by Henri Matisse, Matisse. For a while, Errô abandons his relating to Matisse. ln the mid-1980s, the • fully resisting his tireless adversaries. Errô André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, et predilection for saturating the pictorial artist reached a milestone by associating implicitly states that victory cannot be al. in Room 7 of the Salon d'Automne. A space in favour of enhanced readability. his name with Picasso and Matisse in the • won without a fight. ln 1899, the famous section of Maurice de Vlaminck's 1906 This temporary suspension of his figura tilles of two paintings (Erra-Picasso-Mat art critic and staunch supporter of Mat painting Les Arbres rouges (Landscape tive all-over style can also be seen in Ma isse (Nature morte aux oranges) (Still lite • isse, Félix Fénéon, in his typically terse with Red Trees) can be seen at the back tisse Motor (1969) and an untitled collage with Oranges)) in 1985 and Erra-Picas style, remarked that "anything new, to be of a leopard's wide-open mouth. Oppo tram 1970, in which Matisse's famous Nu so-Matisse in 1986). Proud of his influ • accepted, needs a lot of fools to die".1 site, the same painting has been given rose (Pink Nude), painted in 1935, finds ences, he was attemptinga type of major Thanks to his courage and the passing a gigantic pair of jaws with sharp fangs, herself intertwined with a passenger jet. reconciliation between the two leading • of time, Matisse triumphed over his en literally "roaring" out of the canvas. Else The resulting tableau might be seen as a lights in modern painting. ln his recent emies in the end, just as the Soviet sol where, an impassive lion seems to have mechanical and modernist reinterpreta production, Picasso, the other "monstre • diers eventually defeated theirs. But what ripped another painting to shreds. A host tion of the mythical encounter between sacré", seems to have gained the upper about the "colour-blind monster"? The of wild animais have invaded the rest of Leda and the swan. ln bath cases, Errô hand and is devouring his way through • reference to colour-blindness reflects the the composition, transformed into a jun creates the models or "maquettes" for the works of Errô. ls it definitive though? arbitrary handling of colourwhich caused gle, bath inextricable and technicoloured, his collages using the same tools as • so much anger and indignation among where the paintings of Derain, Vlaminck, Matisse in the 1940s and 50s, i.e., a pair the most conservative thinkers when the Matisse, and even Van Gogh are inter of scissors.' On the other hand, the in 1 Félix, Fénéon, UExposition Pissarro" in L'Art ° • Fauvists first crashed onto the art scene . spersed with vegetation. Monkeys reign congruous nature of his juxtapositions is moderne, n 3, 20 January 1899. But Errô takes this a step further, with a supreme, amusing themselves with these more in line with the Dada spirit: thus, in 2 Marcel Nicolle, Journalde Rouen, 20 • en abyme Matisse Motor, Luxe November 1905. mise of the idea of monstrosity. artworks which, in the early twentieth the figures !rom have ln the eyes of their critics, paintings by century, could easily have been com seen their environment suddenly taken 3 ln an interview carried out when the artist • donated sixty-six collages to the Centre Fauvist artists seemed monstrous; at the pared to the antics of monkeys. Asmiling over by an enormous motor and fighter jet. stroke of a brush, Errô has made them baby, sitting in front of La Raieverte, has However, Errô's logic does not amount to Pompidou Paris in 2010, Errô explained that • although the cutting and pasting phase is truly monstrous. The richly coloured face turned round, as though appealing to the nihilist desacralization. Like Matisse, he only a preliminary step before producing the • of Madame Matisse in La Raie verte (The viewer... alter all, didn't the critic Marcel has succeeded in emancipating himself painted work, the collages are of particular Green Line, 1905) is replaced by a gri Nicolle describe Fauvist paintings as the !rom his academic training without entire importance ta him. They are "the originals macing creature, with abnormally large "barbarie and naïve games of a child play ly rejecting it. Spending six years training and the paintings are the copies". www. • centrepompidou.fr/cpv/resource/cpBqyr/ eyes, nase, and mouth while the figure ing with the paint-box he was given for as a painter in Reykjavik, Florence, and rXapqd) in La Chevelure (Blue Hair, 1952) has Christmas"?2 Oslo, in a way thatwas "classical, perhaps • 4 Ibid. gained an enormous head, bent over at lt is with this same level of aggressivity tao classical", Errô understands the im 4 • a right-angle ... There is even a clever nad that several major icons of modern art, portance of iconic artists !rom the past. ls 5 On this subject, see the interview with to Matisse and his scissors, in the tact that (not only Henri Matisse but also Edvard it fear of being devoured by the "monster the poet and art critic Alain Jouffroy, Errô cuts out the artist's paper eut-outs: Munch, Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Matisse" that makes him celebrate the which coincided with the exhibition Errô, • images du siècle (www.youtube.com/ the figure of Zulma (1950) finds herself André Derain, Max Beckmann, Pablo Pi artist in a banner-like work to his glory, watch?v=pTs0ucrK3nQ) • reduced to a mere fetish in the clutches casso,Marcel Duchamp,Juan Gris,Alexej the succinctly titled Matisse? As was the of an alarming mummy, while a few of von Jawlensky, Piet Mondrian. and others) case for Les Vainqueurs de Leningrad, • the creature's bandages can be seen in represented by some of their most em the leading Fauvist's paintings have been the void left by her silhouette, eut tram blematic works, are plaguing the mind of placed in a grid in this oil on canvas !rom • the adjacent vignette. Every element of poor Jackson Pollock in the appropriately 1991, which could be interpreted in any the tableau could be similarly analysed, titled The Background of Pollock. Each number of ways. ls this a vast example Being on the wall • as the works of Matisse (our "monstre of these figures have counted, to varying of "squaring off", an academic practice if sacré") are attacked by "real" monsters degrees, in developing the style of the ever there was one, which would enable Beings of the wall • such as Frankenstein, King Kong, Godzilla, artist who would make his mark pioneer Errô to rigorously appropriate not just in Berlin-KRM and Dracula. ing Abstract Expressionism in the years dividual works by Matisse but his entire • Two other works, painted between 1966 following World War Il. As portrayed by œuvre? The lslandic artist uses the word Patricia Tardy and 1967, have an identical compo Errô, Pollock seems to be wondering how "net" for this grid. Should Matisse's paint • Vainqueurs de sitional scheme to Les to contend with this vast and cumber ings, therefore, be viewed as prisoners, • Leningrad supportés par le monstre some "cultural baggage" in order to take caught within this giant net? This coercive daltonien Matisse. ln Les GrandsFauves the modern art world by storm, as sug approach would seem to hold the car (Hommage Louis Vauxcelles) gested by the spirited horses and their The KRM collective, composed of art à (The Wild nivorous works of Matisse symbolically 2 • ists GezaJager' and Chérif Zerdoumi , a Beasts (Homage to Louis Vauxcelles)) and enraged riders filling the lower section at bay while, at the same time, inspiring The Backgroundof Pollock, Errô splits the of the composition.