"CHUCK CLOSE RETROSPEKTIVE" par Jochen von JOCHEN POETTER, Helmut FRIEDEL & Margrit BREHM. Editions Cantz, Ostfildern. 1994. Imprimé en Allemagne. in-4, couverture toilée blanche sous jaquette illustrée en couleurs. 200 pages. Textes bilingues Allemand / Anglais de Jochen Poetter, Helmut Friedel, Robert Storr, Margrit Franziska Brehm, illustré de nombreuses reproductions photographiques noir & blanc et couleurs, 21 in-texte et 39 hors texte, d'œuvres de Chuck Close.Ouvrage réalisé dans le cadre de l'exposition éponyme à la Staatliche Kunsthalle de Baden-Baden, du 10 Avril au 22 Juin 1994 et au Lenbachhaus de Munich du 13 Juillet au 11 Septembre 1994.

 

"…Chuck Close paints pictures based on photographs of faces; i.e. he paints portraits. Since 1968, when he first transferred a photograph of his own face to canvas, he has devoted himself almost exclusively to this theme. "My paintings are about heads - photographs of heads - photography - painting based on photographs - painting - paintings. The constrictions of this narrow topic contrast with the openness of the work itself. This applies both to the variety of techniques the artist has implemented throughout the past 25 years and to the progressive enlargement of the compositional vocabulary, a growing grasp of the language. The interrelationship between continuity and change makes a statement on the priorities Chuck Close has chosen: already once-removed by the use of a photograph as basis, the focus is fixed on the transformation, i.e. the work on the painting. "It's what I call an 'invention of means,' rather than an invention in the way it's normally thought of. You're not inventing the shape, you're not inventing the color, you're not inventing the texture. All that is inherent in the original. What you're doing is inventing the means to reconstruct that, in its own terms. It all has to work as a painting. The fundamental importance he attaches to the means used to transpose one visual idiom to another leads to a concentration on painting's own innate laws…" Extrait de "On the Simultaneity of Difference and the Variety of Sameness. The Evolution of Chuck Close' Work" par Margrit Franziska Brehm.

 

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