Eskil Lam – Cosmic Acrobats

WIFREDO
NOUVEAU NOUVEAU MONDE
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Cosmic Acrobats
Eskil Lam
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Eskil Lam
Cosmic Acrobats
Eskil Lam
I am often asked what it felt like growing up in the presence of my father’s
work, the assumption being that our walls were covered with his paintings. His
paintings stayed in his studio most of the time, however, and my surroundings
at home were mostly a reflection of my mother’s rather exuberant and playful
spirit, herself an artist. But his paintings did venture out to our living space
once in a while when a collector came to visit or in preparation for a show.
As I remember, one painting in particular, La Fiancée, paraded out before us
more often than the others. I was just about the same height as this canvas
and I would find myself face to face with the little Eleggua head perched
on top of the figure’s head. I remember being half afraid of its stare, but
very curious; indeed, it too seemed to be looking back at me with the same
inquisitive gaze. I was always drawn to the Fiancée’s elongated blue trunk
with on either side those exquisite breasts and I couldn’t help wondering if
she was more tree, horse, woman or god.
I believe anyone who stays long enough with my father’s paintings senses
this challenge to their habitual seeing; the domain of all art you might say.
Yet there is something so very human in his paintings and more often than
not you meet with the eyes of a creature that mirror your own. Something
human is always emerging, or penetrating, the omnipresent animal, plant
and non-human world of his compositions. Even when a composition has
no apparent human subject, such as the Brousse series, one of which is here
on exhibit, its trace is there in what could be viewed as human tools: a blade,
a scythe metamorphosing out of the cluster of jagged stems or sugar canes. Is
this the sign of the great meeting of the oppressor and the oppressed?
If my father had one thing on his mind, one overriding concern, it was the
state of the world in which we were living. I say my parents were both artists
but our conversations at the dinner table when my father presided always
turned to politics.
Saying this takes nothing away from the poetry and the almost animist
quality to his art.
We often read about the “inverse path” in relation to my father’s journey, for
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in many ways he began as a European artist. It was only after meeting Picasso
and other such luminaries of his times, who encouraged and empowered
him to speak from the depths of where he came from, that he found the
confidence to focus his modernist concerns on a new sphere of influence,
namely his own native country’s vibrant culture, celebrating, as he once put
it, “the beauty of the plastic art of the blacks.” By drawing inspiration from
his mixed heritage — Chinese, African, European, American — he was able
to formulate a wholly new language, and many have argued a new aesthetic,
through whichever media he chose: painting, drawing, prints, ceramics.
In some of the small canvases he painted much later in his life, a number of
them here on show, I am sure you will agree that he mastered the language.
There is a fluency, a spontaneity, in the execution of these paintings, in the
way he summons forth the now familiar elements of his world. And with
this fluency there is often humor: Portrait de Famille for instance (to take up
the metaphor of language: we all know that before you can appreciate the
humor of a culture, you must first master its language). But above all, what
strikes me as I review this varied but representative selection of his work is the
ever-present line, that characteristically fluid and confident line with which
he structures his creatures and their accoutrements. From his early drawings,
his pastels and etchings to these later compositions, the line is there: even
among the jewel-like dabs of paint in Table dans le jardin in pale outlines
where the paper shows through. And like the speech of conversation, the line
sometimes breaks off, leaves gaps, reinforcing our sense of the apparition,
the visionary quality of his art. And just as the line succeeds in holding the
vision, my father’s extraordinary creatures enact it — creatures the poet Alain
Jouffroy so aptly referred to as cosmic acrobats.
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Eskil Lam
Lou Laurin-Lam and Wifredo Lam in their apartment in Zurich, 1961
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Eskil, Timour, Lou and Wifredo Lam in front
of two of his works at the Moderna Museet,
Stockholm 1967

Eskil Lam

Credits
© documentary photos SDO The Estate of Wifredo Lam
© Archives Loeb (p.28)
© Perls Galleries (p. 30)
© UNESCO (p. 31)
Chillida Archives (p. 41)
© Graham Foundation
© The Irving Penn Foundation (p. 49)
© Published with the graceful permission of Marie-Claude Char (p. 57)
© Éditions du Sagittaire (p. 57, 265)
© Nouvelles Éditions Place, Paris (p. 74)
© Austrian Frederick and Lilian Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna (p. 75, 89)
© John and Trude Schiff papers, courtesy Leo Baeck Institute (p. 76)
© Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght (p. 89)
© Revista Revolución y Cultura, Havana (p. 91–95)
ICA Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (p. 100, 101, 113)
© Lee Miller Archives, Chiddingly, East Sussex, 2012. All rights reserved (p. 110, 111)
Courtesy Fondazione Piero Manzoni, Milan (p. 126, 131, 132, 133, 134 )
Courtesy Casa Museo Asger Jorn, Albissola Marina (p. 127, 136)
Courtesy Comune di Albissola Marina / Comune di Albissola Marina (ph. Gianluca Anselmo) (p. 121, 132)
Courtesy Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid / Foto: Joaquín Cortés / Román Lores
(p. 148-149, 154-155, 160-161, 178-179, 206-207, 220-221)
Courtesy Bibliothèque et Archives Canada / e000756917 (p. 200)
© Bill Cotter, WorldsFairPhotos.com (p. 201)
© association Atelier André Breton, www.andrebreton.fr
© ProLitteris for the artworks by Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Wifredo Lam
Despite a thorough research, not all copyright holders could be identified. Should you be the owner of
the copyright or related rights to the illustrations published in this book, please contact the gallery.
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Concept
Krystyna Gmurzynska, Mathias Rastorfer
Coordination
Alessandra Consonni
Texts by
Eskil Lam
Alain Jouffroy
Professor Luca Bochicchio, University of Genova
Professor Dawn Adès
Monsieur le Ministre Dominique de Villepin
Dorota Dolega-Ritter, Associate Director of the Wifredo Lam Archive
Adrian Clark
Antony Penrose, director of the Lee Miller Archive and Penrose Collection
Jacques Leenhardt, Directeur d’Études at School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Paris
Quote: ‘My Painting is an Act of Decolonization’
an Interview with Wifredo Lam by Gerardo Mosquera (1980)
Jean-Louis Paudrat
© galerie gmurzynska 2018
Printed by Grafiche Step, Parma, Italy
galerie gmurzynska
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