Portrait of Artist in Crisis, Portrait of Eugène Ionesco

A face worn away by acid, as is the accompanying pair of hands holding a feather, is held in a birdcage. Next to it, a heart—part of the same being?—hangs in a miniature cage, attacked by mold. Titled Portrait of Artist in Crisis, Portrait of Eugène Ionesco, this artwork by Japanese artist Tetsumi Kudo conveys his trademark irony and gives equal importance to the sinister, the poetic, caustic critique and laughter.

This work is part of an eponymous series (Portrait of Artist in Crisis) produced by the artist between 1965 and 1981. The birdcage is a leitmotiv and a metaphor of the artist's responsibility or disarray in the face of the technological and consumerist excesses of an individualistic society. Here, the face of the captive artist resembles that of Eugene Ionesco, the poet and playwright who was a master of the absurd as well as, according to Kudo, the embodiment of European egotism.

Held in the Pinault Collection, Portrait of Artist in Crisis, Portrait of Eugène Ionesco was presented in the show À Triple tour. Collection Pinault (“triple locked”) at the Paris Conciergerie, in 2013.