PUBLISHED in the exhibition CATALOG « JUDIT REIGL », GALERIE RENCONTRES, PARIS, 1973
Exclusively abstract painting. For 13 years. A kind of mass writing on a white background…
From February 1966, this same writing transformed itself independently of my will, or even against it, into a more and more anthropomorphic figure, a human torso.
At first imperceptibly, then more and more consciously after 1970, I tried to intervene, to underline the emerging aspect of these erect bodies.
In May 1972, I exhibited about twenty of these paintings (1966-1972), entitled Homme (Man), at the Galerie Rencontres. I thought at that time I had succeeded in making an analysis of my approach over the past six years. I believed I could draw two conclusions relevant for the continuation of my work:
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Push, propel this man until he is completely free, until he flies away
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Make this painting more readable, more accessible
During the autumn of 1972, all was belied by what actually happened. I painted bad canvases for four months, unable to finish a single one. I had to stop. My analysis was not able to penetrate my subconscious, whose fundamental business is to bypass the orders coming from my mind.
The initial breakthrough became a wall: a breakthrough in 1966-1970, stemming from the uprising of the subconscious, so long as it was supported by "the contribution of low values" (G. Bataille), so long as I was one of those who stored up "this eruptive force" and "are necessarily situated below" (G. Bataille). A wall gradually blocking the opening (1971-72) as I tried to control this revolt, go beyond the contradictions and reach the goal of liberation: my subconscious had abandoned me. I could no longer follow this man taking off…an Icarian escape. Was this a disguised search for a superman? Super-ego?
Simultaneously, my second decision provoked a clash, even harsher, with the "world of rational utility, which cannot be abolished" (G. Bataille). Another wall! Because, if we can take the first – the Icarian escape – as mere individual fantasy, the second prevents entry into a real world, a land that concerns us all, where we are registered in the social and political.