Votre Portrait
1970-1975
Painted platic and wood, painted plant foam and resin, plastic objects, metal threads, transitors and electric resistance
30 x 42 x 21 cm (11 13/16 x 16 9/16 x 8 1/4 in.)
With only an empty gaze and a pair of hands corroded by acid, the man whose advent Tetsumi Kudo celebrates with irony is a post-apocalyptic being. He seems prisoner of his destiny, similarly to the ecosystem held prisoner in the aquarium he leans against.
The irony at play in the Votre Portrait installation, which is conceived as a reflection of a human society in distress, is reminiscent of the caustic wit of the neo-Dadaist movement the artist frequented in Tokyo after the war. The grotesque, the macabre and the triviality of daily life coexist without any hierarchy of values.
Held in the Pinault Collection, Votre Portrait was presented to the public in the exhibition À Triple tour. Collection Pinault (“triple locked”) at the Paris Conciergerie in 2013, and at Punta della Dogana in Venice, in 2015.
The irony at play in the Votre Portrait installation, which is conceived as a reflection of a human society in distress, is reminiscent of the caustic wit of the neo-Dadaist movement the artist frequented in Tokyo after the war. The grotesque, the macabre and the triviality of daily life coexist without any hierarchy of values.
Held in the Pinault Collection, Votre Portrait was presented to the public in the exhibition À Triple tour. Collection Pinault (“triple locked”) at the Paris Conciergerie in 2013, and at Punta della Dogana in Venice, in 2015.
Exhibitions
Tetsumi KUDO © Adagp, Paris.
Photo: Galerie Albert Benamou, Paris
