.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Sparkling with surreal wit, Back with a Red Hat is a monumental work that formed part of Nicolas Party’s extraordinary debut exhibition in New York. Rendered in the artist’s signature pastel medium, it depicts a semi-nude figure seen from behind, clad in a blue cloak, a wide-brimmed red hat and socks adorned with pom poms. This enigmatic apparition belongs to a series that Party made for the Metropolitan Opera’s 2017 premiere of Thomas Adès’ The Exterminating Angel. The opera was based on the 1962 Luis Buñuel film of the same name, which tells of a nightmarish dinner party whose attendees find themselves mysteriously unable to leave. Prior to opening night, the Met hosted its own imitation banquet for a selection of distinguished guests, who were required to attend in fancy dress. The present work and its similarly faceless companions were present at the feast, forming a disarming entourage around the bemused diners. Executed on a vast, larger-than-life scale, it is a virtuosic example of Party’s distinctive visual language, alive with theatrical intrigue.
After the dinner, the works remained on view at the Met in an exhibition entitled Dinner for 24 Sheep. Referencing the real livestock used in the opera, it followed on from Party’s previous series of immersive dining performances, including Dinner for 24 Elephants at the Modern Institute, Glasgow in 2011, and Dinner for 24 Dogs in 2015. For the Met dinner, the artist designed a marble table top featuring ghoulish inlaid images, and was present for part of the evening, sharing the role of ‘butler’ with New Museum director Massimiliano Gioni. Most guests had not seen the original Buñuel film. Punctuated by lengthy gaps between courses, the dining experience purposefully placed them in the same dilemma as the characters in the story, questioning whether they were supposed to stay or depart. Back with a Red Hat and its companions stood mute, their backs resolutely to the scene. Like René Magritte’s bowler-hatted men—deeply admired by Party—they remained locked in a parallel dreamlike world, yielding no answers.
As well as capturing Party’s interests in Surrealism, the work demonstrates his long-standing debt to the work of Pablo Picasso. It was the artist’s 1921 pastel work Tête de femme that first inspired his own engagement with the medium. ‘I bought the postcard’, he recalls, ‘and went to the art store the next day to buy a pastel kit’ (N. Party, quoted in R. Vitorelli, ‘Interview Nicolas Party’, Spike, no. 44, Summer 2015). Party was particularly fascinated by the androgynous nature of Picasso’s pastel subjects: an influence borne out in the Met works, many of whom are ambiguous in gender. He was also entranced by the artist’s near-painterly use of the medium, exploiting its rich modulations of texture and colour, and its inherent sense of dynamism. Here, the folds of the subject’s cape are exquisitely rendered, infused with movement. So, too, is the skin, which seems to glow from within. Though static and sentinel, the figure bristles with an uncanny sense of life, poised perpetually on the brink of turning around.
After the dinner, the works remained on view at the Met in an exhibition entitled Dinner for 24 Sheep. Referencing the real livestock used in the opera, it followed on from Party’s previous series of immersive dining performances, including Dinner for 24 Elephants at the Modern Institute, Glasgow in 2011, and Dinner for 24 Dogs in 2015. For the Met dinner, the artist designed a marble table top featuring ghoulish inlaid images, and was present for part of the evening, sharing the role of ‘butler’ with New Museum director Massimiliano Gioni. Most guests had not seen the original Buñuel film. Punctuated by lengthy gaps between courses, the dining experience purposefully placed them in the same dilemma as the characters in the story, questioning whether they were supposed to stay or depart. Back with a Red Hat and its companions stood mute, their backs resolutely to the scene. Like René Magritte’s bowler-hatted men—deeply admired by Party—they remained locked in a parallel dreamlike world, yielding no answers.
As well as capturing Party’s interests in Surrealism, the work demonstrates his long-standing debt to the work of Pablo Picasso. It was the artist’s 1921 pastel work Tête de femme that first inspired his own engagement with the medium. ‘I bought the postcard’, he recalls, ‘and went to the art store the next day to buy a pastel kit’ (N. Party, quoted in R. Vitorelli, ‘Interview Nicolas Party’, Spike, no. 44, Summer 2015). Party was particularly fascinated by the androgynous nature of Picasso’s pastel subjects: an influence borne out in the Met works, many of whom are ambiguous in gender. He was also entranced by the artist’s near-painterly use of the medium, exploiting its rich modulations of texture and colour, and its inherent sense of dynamism. Here, the folds of the subject’s cape are exquisitely rendered, infused with movement. So, too, is the skin, which seems to glow from within. Though static and sentinel, the figure bristles with an uncanny sense of life, poised perpetually on the brink of turning around.