Sam Szafran

Even in Paris, few people know about Sam Szafran (1934-2019), who lived here for most of his life, let alone his place in the history of modern art. ", which featured some 60 paintings, as well as archival material from his studio. It was the first time in 20 years that a French museum presented a retrospective of him, along with Claude Monet's "Water Lilies" at the Musée de l'Orangerie, as well as masterpieces by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, and other masters of the art.

Sam Szafran

Szafran occupies a special place in the history of art in the second half of the 20th century - at a time when abstract art was prevalent, he turned away from the artistic trends of his contemporaries and turned to the depiction of realistic figuration. In his view, the traditional Western rule of focal perspective was visually limiting, and in his figurative paintings he presented images by deconstructing and distorting perspectives in enclosed spaces, and systematically and rationally explored all the possibilities of using natural perspective. Over time, these spatially combined and mutually confronting works produce an explosive visual accumulation.

>Feuillages (Leaves), 1986-1989

Born in 1934 in Paris, France,Szafran's Polish Jewish identity made his childhood and adolescence full of hardships. Not only was he unable to go to school, but he even had to live in a gang in Paris. It was then that painting became a refuge for the young Savran and gradually began to build a "second reality" for his life. At the age of 17, he enrolled in an evening sketching class at the city hall, where he began to sketch at the Louvre and sketch pedestrians. He entered the Grande Chaumière, where he studied with Henri Goetz and Orlando Pelayo.

>Turtleback Bamboo

In 1961,Szafranmet Giacometti, who in a sense could be considered his spiritual mentor; in the 1960s, young artists were lost in the doctrines of Surrealism, Neo-Cubism, Neo-Figurative Painting and Abstract Expressionism, but toSzafran, Giacometti always had a unique quest - the same head over and over again, asking the question "existence". He paints the same head over and over again, asking the question of "existence" over and over again. As a young painter,Szafranfelt he also had the right to escape from those artistic communities. Uneducated in the laws of art history,Szafranbegan to build his own experiences, creations and laws.

>The Urban Scene

Szafranwas a straightforward and stubborn man, obsessed to the point of neurosis when it came to what he believed to be the truth. As a "rustic" with no foundation in art theory, SamSzafranwas not shy to participate in the discussions of poets, painters and philosophers on the "Left Bank" from his school days, and it was this pure obsession and curiosity that made him what he was. He was even paranoid about his choice of medium: when he bought his first box of pastels in 1958,Szafrandescribed himself as standing in front of these colorful sticks as hungry as a poor child in front of a delicatessen, but from then on he also fell into an abyss because he "could not master them at all". He became "technically obsessed" in order to fully grasp the nuances of pastels and watercolors.

>The Staircase at 54 Rue de Seine, Paris

Szafran's obsession also manifests itself in the subject matter of his paintings, which almost always revolve around the studio, the staircase and the foliage of plants under a glass canopy, but this monotony is offset by a fascinating frenzy of experimentation. "No one can paint likeSzafran, and if you look closely enough, you'll see that his work is rich in detail." So says curator Julia Drost.

>The Staircase on Seine Street

In the spring of 1966,Szafranmet Zao Wou-ki. In the summer, Zao Wou-ki lentSzafranhis studio to paint. He was captivated by a giant tortoise-backed bamboo in the studio, with a lush spread of leaves cascading under a glass canopy. SamSzafranlater recalled, "It was impossible for me to paint it at the time, but the feeling of powerlessness became a certain obsession." So he began his first series of "greenhouse" plant paintings, and he never looked back. More and more huge leafy clusters unfolded directly before one's eyes, like flowers on a medieval tapestry. He likes to depict vines, trees and ferns, and his chromatic palette of pastels creates infinite gradations, whichSzafranadds to by breaking down light into multiple refractions. For critic JeanClair,Szafranbuilds in these leafy clumps an order that belongs to himself and to the universe.

>"Inside the Studio at Rue de Crusole II

The studio is alsoSzafran's most important subject, as he once described Zao Wou-ki's studio as too bright and tidy for him to paint, before focusing on the chaos of foliage. In his "Studio" series, he expresses "chaos" with great artistic skill, while portraying the light penetrating through the large glass windows. In the mid-1970s, in honor of the Bellini family of Renaissance Venice,Szafranand his partners opened a printmaking studio called the Bellini Printers, which was alsoSzafran's studio at the time, and where a series of paintings on the theme of "The Printers" was born. The pyramidal glass roof, the huge printing machines, the staircase to the basement, the corridors of the printing house, the storage rooms, etc., are well documented bySzafran. He seems to try to give the audience a sense of walking around in real space and having an unobstructed view in a flat surface. He believes he learned to watch from film, and he often repeatedly studied the editing, movement and change of viewpoints of film frames at HenriLanglois' film archive, and it can be said that film became an important way for him to build his own system.

>Untitled

Over and over again,Szafranintroduces new perspectives in the representation of space that are distinct from traditional perspective and different from everyday understanding. 1967 saw the staircase become another Mount St. Victor in his exploration of the problem, appearing in different images with an endlessly changing point of view, a spiral perspective like a spider's web, removing the center and allowing the surface to flow freely, unfolding in height and width at the same time, breaking the definition of agglomerative space The spiral perspective, like a spider's web, removes the center and allows the surface to flow freely, unfolding in height and width at the same time, breaking the definition of assembled space and taking the eye up the steps. These works are often dizzying, all stillness in a state of constant motion. Interestingly, this is like the perspective of a newborn baby, a perspective that is uneducated. Like Giacometti, whom he reveres, insists on the purity of vision in painting. For Gene Clare,Szafranundertook a Copernican visual revolution.

InSzafran's view, the more technology evolved, the more incompetent the artist became, no longer even capable of painting an apple well. He believes that the artist is trained for the capture of perspective, and he has always honed his skills and eye, striving to move from the traditional single space to the composite space of intention, a lost order that is becoming the truth inSzafran's obsession.

Article Source:艺术与设计

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