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Lot Essay
Dès le début des années 1960, Peter Saul se pose en satiriste insolent de l'establishment. Des traits de pastel délibérément négligés sur papier et la confusion d'échelle sont les instruments de l'ironie des oeuvres de Saul, qui vise avec insolence la fade normalité de la société américaine de l'époque. Dans ces deux oeuvres, il dégrade l'image dans un délire accumulatif, associant figures de comics distordues, membres mutilés et sous-marins sur fond de carrelage de salle de bains. Cette riposte frontale à l'expressionisme abstrait, qui entend revenir à l'essentiel de la peinture, les pigments et le support, ne se rattache pas pour autant au Pop Art. Version 'rationnelle' de leur commun amour des comics et de la vulgarité populaire, le Pop Art est adopté par le monde de l'art des années soixante, 'coupant l'herbe sous le pied' à l'éruption anticonformiste de Saul, refoulée et méprisée (Robert Storr, Le Principe de Peter, 1999). Grâce à sa saturation narrative, Peter Saul entend donc privilégier le sens de l'oeuvre plutôt que la matérialité de la peinture sacralisée par ses contemporains ; il souhaite mettre ' 'l'idée expressive' au premier plan avant les fournitures pour artiste' (propos de l'artiste rapportés par R. Storr, op. cit.).
From the beginning of the 1960s, Peter Saul set himself up as a bold satirist of the establishment. Pastel lines deliberately neglected on the paper and confusion of scale are instruments of irony in Saul's work, which boldly targets the tired normality of contemporary US society. In both these untitled works, he degrades the image in a cumulative frenzy, combining distorted comic figures, mutilated and submerged limbs against a background of bathroom tiles. Although this direct retort to abstract expressionism aims to return to the essentials of painting, the pigments and the medium, it cannot be grouped with Pop Art. A 'rational' version of their shared love of comics and popular 'vulgarity', Pop Art was adopted by the art world in the 1960s, 'pulling the rug from under' Saul's rejected and misunderstood anti-conformist eruption (Robert Storr, Le Principe de Peter, 1999). Using narrative saturation, Peter Saul aims to promote the meaning of the work over the materiality of the painting held in veneration by his contemporaries; he wants to bring the ''expressive idea' to the fore rather than my art supplies' (artist's words quoted by Robert Storr,, op. cit.).
From the beginning of the 1960s, Peter Saul set himself up as a bold satirist of the establishment. Pastel lines deliberately neglected on the paper and confusion of scale are instruments of irony in Saul's work, which boldly targets the tired normality of contemporary US society. In both these untitled works, he degrades the image in a cumulative frenzy, combining distorted comic figures, mutilated and submerged limbs against a background of bathroom tiles. Although this direct retort to abstract expressionism aims to return to the essentials of painting, the pigments and the medium, it cannot be grouped with Pop Art. A 'rational' version of their shared love of comics and popular 'vulgarity', Pop Art was adopted by the art world in the 1960s, 'pulling the rug from under' Saul's rejected and misunderstood anti-conformist eruption (Robert Storr, Le Principe de Peter, 1999). Using narrative saturation, Peter Saul aims to promote the meaning of the work over the materiality of the painting held in veneration by his contemporaries; he wants to bring the ''expressive idea' to the fore rather than my art supplies' (artist's words quoted by Robert Storr,, op. cit.).