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Rene Laubies (1959) Technique mixte sur papier
Rene Laubies, an abstract thesis
Welcome to our ongoing research project, an abstract thesis not on or about, but very close to the life and work of painter, translator, writer and Chan-dao guru Rene Laubies. We elucidate his legacy by drawing attention to the Euro-decentering cultural hybridity innate to his commonplace ascetic-arts procedure.
Rene Laubies is best represented by
Galerie Alain Margaron, Paris.
Laubies, Aphorism No. 9
A painter who claims to paint what he wants is mistaken. The painting is imposed on us, changes its course, goes left and right, and then suddenly stops. It knows when to stop. Ageing painters lay it on more and more. Heavy toil does not restore grace. Chinese painters of the classical period knew when to stop. They accentuated accidents detected in nature. A poetic and musical work of art owes everything to inspiration. One needs to forget technique and virtuosity. One cannot paint the void without painting the fullness!
Un peintre qui prétend faire le tableau qu'il veut se trompe. Le tableau s'impose à nous, dévie sa course, prend à gauche et à droite, puis soudain s'arrête. Il faut savoir s'arrêter. Le peintre en vieillissant charge et surcharge. Le lourd labeur ne remplace pas la grâce. Les Chinois de l'époque classique eux savaient s'arrêter. Ils pouvaient voir dans la nature un accident qu'ils accentuaient. Le tableau poétique et musical doit tout à l'inspiration. Pour eux il faut oublier la technique, la virtuosité. On ne peut peindre le vide sans peindre le plein !
Laubiès. 2001. "Aphorismes," in Ritratti e Aforismi | Portraits et Aphorismes. [Bilingual, Italian and French], Morgana Edizioni, Firenze.
Guo Xi as cultural toponym
"Early Spring" (1072) by Guo Xi (c. 1020–90)
GUO XI, the distant eleventh-century cultural figure, wafts as a buoyant toponym on the mirage-like horizon of Laubiesian Studies. How disposed should we be about this ominous placement: the transference of securities to a tiny group of investors?
Spelt also typically "Kuo Hsi," "Khuo-Chi," et cetera, Guo Xi (郭熙 / Japanese Kaku Ki), as legend has it, was a court professional landscape painter and aesthetician of the Northern Song dynasty. As a highly lettered or literati painter, Guo Xi developed an amply personal and detailed system of idiomatic brush strokes that proved influential for later painters. He is typically attributed to having produced a treatise on landscape painting. In his best known painting titled "Early Spring," dated 1072, Guo Xi demonstrates his innovative methods for producing an amalgam of perspectives or "angle of totality."
Cautionary note on transliteration: Subsequent researchers should not be confused by the varied spellings of the painter's name. Aside from the two most common appearing, "Go Xi" and "Kuo Hsi," which alone in the eyes and the ears of the uninitiated seem in themselves to be hugely divergent, the following variants are also attested, "Khuo-Chi" (Harambourg 1998), "Kouo-Hi" (Abadie 2003), "Kuo-Shi" (Cloutier c. 2006), and the eminently proper "Guō Xī" with finalising Hanyu Pinyin tonal marks. Reasons for the appearance of these wildly diverse orthographic outcomes are due in large to the historical presence of not less than nine different, often competing, and perceptively dissimilar Romanization systems of Mandarin transcription that arose in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The two most universally recognised conventions are clearly Wade-Giles and Hanyu Pinyin. However, deeper confusion arises from the fact that in our current attempt to place Guo Xi within a formal Laubiesian Studies framework, we invariably rely on textual materials that are generally the product of Francophone discourse. Puzzlement is therefore bound to arise from the way that earlier generations of French scholars presented Chinese words in the dress of their own distinctive Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient transcription scheme that was instituted in the 19th century – a system, moreover, that even the French found difficult to pronounce without first knowing its intricacies (Ware 160, n. 5). In recent times, however, Hanyu Pinyin has nearly replaced all other Sinitic Romanization schemes and is increasingly seen in parts of the world where the Latin alphabet is the norm.
References
Abadie, Daniel. 2003. Texte écrit à l'occasion de la publication du catalogue René Laubiès édité par la galerie Alain Margaron (Août).
Cloutier, Guy. N.d. [c. Winter 2006-7]. Untitled document.
Harambourg, Lydia. 1998. L’Ecole de Paris, 1945-1965: Dictionnaire des peintres.
Ware, James R. 1932. Transliteration of the Names of Chinese Buddhist Monks Author(s), Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 52, No. 2, (Jun.): 159-162.
Laubies, Aphorism No. 6
The conservators in France are like all the French, they detest the painting and the painters that live. Deaths reassure them, but be on guard because the "second death" of official artists may prove definitive and these conservators will in the final analysis pass for idiots, which is in fact their secret terror. The zeal of these petty functionaries of art makes me laugh. They are as quickly dismissed as they are promoted. They take themselves for Louis XIV and end up like Louis XVI.
Les conservateurs en France sont comme tous les français, ils détestent la peinture et les peintres vivants. Les morts les rassurent, mais il faut prendre garde car la "seconde mort" des artistes officiels peut être définitive et ces conservateurs passeront en fin de compte pour des idiots, ce qui est en fait leur terreur secrète. Le zèle des petits fonctionnaires de l'art me fait rire. Ils sont aussi vite limoges que promus. Ils se prennent pour Louis XIV et finissent comme Louis XVI.
(Laubies, 2001.)
On Cloudist Methodology
Cloudist methodology may tersely be defined as a natural, reflexive calligraphic tendency of literati colour field non-figuration whose outcomes exemplify not the expression of the individual or its cult, but the advancement of ascetic arts ontology.
The Legendary Paul Facchetti
His flair is inexplicable; if not for that, it would be too easy and everyone would have some! When seeing a painting for the first time Facchetti senses what is new in it, what is personal, while the others all look at what can sell, what it resembles. In the film that was recently dedicated to him, one sees Facchetti walking in his gallery. It's his garden: Sima, Pollock, Hundertwasser, Michaux, Dubuffet and Laubiès. He never listened, that's his taste, he persisted and did not cede. Few galleries can therefore pride themselves in so many discoveries that mark their era. Just as he knew how to find the young painters, he exposed through his photographs the personality of Breton, Ossorio, Gracq, Michaux, Fautrier, Sima, Wols...
Le flair ne s'explique pas, sans quoi cela serait trop facile, tout le monde en aurait ! Facchetti voyant un tableau pour la première fois sentait ce qu'il y avait de nouveau, de personnel, alors que tous les autres cherchent ce qu'on peut vendre, à quoi cela ressemble. Dans le film qui vient de lui être consacré, on voit Facchetti se promener dans sa galerie. C'est son jardin : Sima, Pollock, Hundertwasser, Michaux, Dubuffet et Laubiès. Il n'a jamais écouté que son goût, s'entête et ne cède pas. Peu de galeries peuvent s'enorgueillir de tant de découvertes qui ont marquee leur époque. De même qu'il a su trouver les jeunes peintres, il a montré dans ses photos la personnalité de Breton, Ossorio, Gracq, Michaux, Fautrier, Sima, Wols...
(Laubiès, 2001.)
On Laubies' work
The naturalist non-figurative and abstract impressions of Rene Laubies, the spiritual head of 'Nuagisme'; that vague appellation coined by his critics who overlooked his exteriorized plasmas spreading like windblown ash over arid terrains — anonymous transparencies of loosened stain on torrid earthen walls.
The light of quiescent colour, his tableaux, shade without tension toneless shade, texturous shade with warmth rubbed patchy under fine-scratched brushings, sun-blanched mauve.
'Just chase the thoughts away from your mind,' he said in Puri. His subtle changes in gait and laughter marked the culmination of modernist trends dating back to ancient China's Tang dynasty.
Odorous strains, fecund terseness, disarming in their paucity, stoic in sheer purity. Each new tablet outflanking its precursor, a pure abstraction retaining no interpreters, inwardly comporting, devoid of gnostic footnotes, unsolicited ramps precipitating ends.
Winters in Palakunnu village stunning amazing salubrious calm and alert. Cessative tinctures of diluted jissom dried and peeling in morning sun.
Spring exhibitions in Paris and Milan; returning through the Greater and Lesser Sundas: hunger, loss, tabulation with thirst patterned stains, sweat-laced breezes; setting off alone when the turpentine is finished, alive and transparent in a pan-Islamic silence.
"On Laubies's Work," 1990, initially published in René Laubiès, Octobre-Novembre 1990 [exhibition catalogue], Gallery Michel Broomhead, Paris; achevé d'imprimer sur les presses de Mira Impression à Libourne, Conception: Canovas Belchi.
Nuagisme (literally "Cloudism")
Nuagisme (literally "Cloudism") is a French art-historical-critical term advanced in the mid-1950s by art critic Julien Alvard (1916-1974). It was coined to describe a class of painters – René Laubies, Frédéric Benrath, René Duvillier, Fernando Lerin, Nasser Assar, and possibly others – whose work was seen as broadly representing a modern naturalistic non-figurative movement that remained aloof to prevalent contemporary theoretical disputes by refusing to enter the oppositional framework that raged between geometrical and lyrical abstraction. Writing in 1955, Alvard described nuagisme as 'an insurrection against the form in attempt to paint the boundless.'
Italo Magliano
Rene Laubies (1924 - 2006)
"Sky," 1967 Oil on paper, 50 x 55 cm
Greek National Gallery, Athens (inv. no: Π.4090)
Donated by Paul Facchetti
"Sky," 1967 Oil on paper, 50 x 55 cm
Greek National Gallery, Athens (inv. no: Π.4090)
Donated by Paul Facchetti
On returning from the United States in 1958, I met Italo Magliano at the gallery of Le Noci... His entire life was devoted to art... Their children continue taking care of this great collection.
En revenant des Etats-Unis en 58, j'ai rencontrée Italo Magliano à la galerie de Le Noci... En somme toute une vie consacrée à l'art… Ses enfants continuent à prendre soin de cette grande collection.
(Laubies, Portraits et Aphorismes, 2001.)
(Laubies, Portraits et Aphorismes, 2001.)
N.B.: Italo Magliano was a Milanese industrialist and art collector (see Martina Corgna, "Fino al 22 luglio a Sondrio mostra sulla pittura francese del dopoguerra raccontata attraverso le collezioni private", newspaper article, La Repubblica, 09 July 2000 Page 10, Section: Milan. See also L'elegia della memoria (Corrispondenze con Italo Magliano), text by Angela / Marta Madesani / Locatelli.
Guido Le Noci
He discovered my painting at Facchetti's gallery when I was in the United States. He had opened his gallery in via Brera [in Milan] with the support of Italo Magliano, Count Panza, Visconti etc... These collectors immediately bought several of my paintings and I became the friend of Magliano who supported me for more than forty years. Through me, Le Noci knew Fautrier. When I brought him over to "Vallée-aux-Loups", he dropped at Fautrier's feet crying "genius" (which didn't embarrass Fautrier...). After that, everything developed in a rush. Argan, Ungaretti and our dear Palma Bucarelli arranged for him to win the Prize at the Venice Bienniale; but that he had to share it with Hartung representing France enraged Fautrier against Malraux who could do nothing!
A découvert ma peinture chez Facchetti quand j'étais aux Etats Unis. Il avait ouvert sa galerie Via Brera avec l'appui de Italo Magliano, du Comte Panza, des Visconti etc… Ces collectionneurs m'ont acheté immédiatement plusieurs tableaux et je suis devenu l'ami de Magliano qui m'a soutenu pendant plus de quarante ans. Par moi, Le Noci a connu Fautrier. Quand je l'ai amende a "la Vallée aux loups", il s'est jeté aux pieds de Fautrier en criant au génie (ce qui n'a qas gêné Fautrier…) Apres, tout s'est précipité. Argan, Ungaretti et notre chère Palma Bucarelli lui ont fait avoir le Prix de la Biennale de Venise, mais qu'il a du partager avec Hartung présenté par la France, ce qui a fait enrager Fautrier contre Malraux qui n'y pouvait rien !
(Laubies, 2001.)
Laubiès on Pound
 |
| Ezra Pound |
«I don't remember having any difficulties returning to visit Pound at St. Elisabeth's Asylum. I asked him whether the surroundings obstructed him.
"Not at all" he said, "these are the only acceptable Americans."
«When I let him know that I was born in Saigon:
"Ah, that's why! Only Europeans with a master key to the Suez Canal are worth anything...."»
«He died quiet as always in Venice, on his tomb a [laurel] shrub inclines itself toward offerings of flowers and seeds of visiting American poets.»
From Laubies, Ritratti e Aforismi / Portraits et Aphorismes (Bilingual, Italian and French), Morgana Edizioni, Firenze, 2002.
Palma Bucarelli
At a dinner in Rome where Ione [Graziani], fiery inspirer of Ungaretti, praised physical love, Palma turned to me and said, "What a bore!" This extremely intelligent and effective woman had in fact to be ired to make use of her beauty and obtain what she should've gotten naturally. She made her Museum of Modern Art towards and against everything. In a few months she wrote the catalogue of Fautrier, which remains the only valid work on him. Her gaze, when in turquoise and a rare flash of emerald passed, tamed Mussolini and other monsters.
Palma Bucarelli
A un dîner à Rome, où Ione, inspiratrice fougueuse d'Ungaretti, vantait l'amour physique, Palma se tourna vers moi : "Cela m'a toujours ennuyé !" En effet cette femme si intelligente et efficace, a dû être agacée d'avoir à se servir aussi de sa beauté pour obtenir ce qu'elle aurait dû avoir naturellement. Elle fit son Musée d'Art Moderne envers et contre tous. En quelques mois elle rédigea le catalogue de Fautrier qui reste le seul ouvrage valable sur lui. Son regard où dans le turquoise passait parfois l'éclair de l'émeraude, a dompté Mussolini et autres monstres.
(Laubies, 2001.)
Fautrier, Seibel, Facchetti, Le Noci, Magliano
We find it interesting (correct us if we're wrong) that Jean Fautrier (1898-1964) did not have a solo post-mortem show until 26 years after his death (Jean Fautrier, Museum, Wiesbaden, Germany, 1990). The reader may recall our brief discussion with art-critic/author/editor Castor SEIBEL who we met at Galerie De Meo, Paris, in March 2008 (Assembling notes around Paul Facchetti). Seibel has written for the Michael Werner Gallery (Jean Fautrier – Nudes, 2001), which holds some importance regarding the exposure of Fautrier's work. Seibel is a penetrating analyst of Laubies as well and closely acquainted with Italian collectors.
A Laubies retrospective needs to be organized gathering works from a range of collections. With respect to Rene's own clear indications, Italian collectors hold the most promise. In his Portraits and Aphorismes (2001), you will notice that he only speaks well of Italians, who, (it ought to be mentioned) collected his work 'for more than four decades.' Here is the passage from René's brief sketch of Guido Le Noci.
References
Laubiès, René. 2001. "Aphorismes," in Ritratti e Aforismi / Portraits et Aphorismes. [Bilingual, Italian and French], Morgana Edizioni, Firenze.
Seibel, Castor. 2001. Jean Fautrier – Nudes. Gallery Werner, New York.
See also
Assembling notes around Paul Facchetti
Pound, Laubies, Alvard and Facchetti
A Laubies retrospective needs to be organized gathering works from a range of collections. With respect to Rene's own clear indications, Italian collectors hold the most promise. In his Portraits and Aphorismes (2001), you will notice that he only speaks well of Italians, who, (it ought to be mentioned) collected his work 'for more than four decades.' Here is the passage from René's brief sketch of Guido Le Noci.
He discovered my painting at Facchetti's when I was in the United States. He had opened his gallery on Via Brera [Milan] with the support of Italo Magliano, Count Panza, Visconti etc… These collectors immediately bought several of my paintings and I became a friend of Magliano who supported me for more than forty years. Through me, Le Noci knew Fautrier.These are just raw notes.
A découvert ma peinture chez Facchetti quand j'étais aux Etats Unis. Il avait ouvert sa galerie Via Brera avec l'appui de Italo Magliano, du Comte Panza, des Visconti etc... Ces collectionneurs m'ont acheté immédiatement plusieurs tableaux et je suis devenu l'ami de Magliano qui m'a soutenu pendant plus de quarante ans. Par moi, Le Noci a connu Fautrier.
References
Laubiès, René. 2001. "Aphorismes," in Ritratti e Aforismi / Portraits et Aphorismes. [Bilingual, Italian and French], Morgana Edizioni, Firenze.
Seibel, Castor. 2001. Jean Fautrier – Nudes. Gallery Werner, New York.
See also
Assembling notes around Paul Facchetti
Pound, Laubies, Alvard and Facchetti
Assembling notes around Paul Facchetti
We would like to assemble some scattered notes in homage to Paul Facchetti (b. 1912). The spur of our account is very recent news that this exceedingly rare photographer and artist continues to flourish in Paris. We first came to learn of Paul Facchetti in our initial phase of bio-art-historical investigation of nonfigurative painter René Laubiès (1922-2006). In the process of establishing an early working contextual framework, we configured some notes titled "Pound, Laubiès, Alvard, Facchetti" (Sep. 2007). Even then, in the very inchoate stages of our research we had publicly appealed for clues on how to get in touch with Paul Facchetti. It was fortunate for me that someone responded, and the heartfelt concern and information provided soon led us to embark on a strenuous month-long fieldwork project in and around Palakunnu village, that southern Indian seaside community where René Laubiès spent the final five extended winters of his life. It was late October 2006 when René arrived on his final call there. That visit however proved tragically short. After only nine days, on Nov 2, he entered Wenlock Government Hospital in the nearby city of Mangalore. Eleven days later on Nov 13, René expired.
During our month-long research in India we spoke with three broad sets of informants: 1) local villagers who were privy to Laubiès' various pastimes, 2) western travellers who knew René in that roughly six-year period of winters, and 3) administrators, doctors and other health care workers associated with the elderly patient during his eleven-day residence at Wenlock Government Hospital, Mangalore.
In the later part of February 2008, we received an endowment in the form of an air ticket, Singapore–Paris–Singapore, for the sake of expanding my research. We visited Paris from Feb 24 to Mar 24, 2008. A major objective in going to Paris was obviously to meet Paul Facchetti. We tried our best but failed to meet him, placing blame on our own ill resolve and lack of French. Not unsurprisingly, numerous people – when learning of our project – consistently asked if we'd met Paul Facchetti. "We are trying our best!" But no one offered to arrange a first meeting... Speaking with colleagues, we became aware of Facchetti's immense historical significance, not only through decades-long friendship with Laubies, but of his own individual achievements far more.
It was therefore ultimately Mr. Castor SEIBEL, art critic and collector, who more then anyone else in Paris beseeched us to go and meet Facchetti. "Before it is too late!" he dramatically implored. "Do you know if he's still alive?" he asked. "He's alive," we replied: "A person in New York just had him on the phone, and is on his way to Paris. We're scheduled to meet for lunch tomorrow."
Ten weeks after returning from Paris we became the beneficiary of a data reception, which offered a kind of analytical re-structuring and confirmed Paul Facchetti as the consummate Mid-Twentieth to Early Twenty-first Century global art-historical patriarch. But a fundamental point that we need to bear in mind is that Paul is now 96 years of age. According to reports, he is physically frail but on the road to recovery from a tumble that he suffered earlier in the year. Reports speak further to his state of mind being effervescent, lucid and indomitable.
Let us try to halfway sum up here. It was only from the point of meeting Castor Seibel at Galerie Di Meo, rue des Beaux-Arts, that we began to fathom the immense importance of meeting and speaking with Paul Facchetti. Our deepening research on the life and work of René Laubiès discloses all the more that Facchetti represents a living spring of crucial art-historical data. Paul Facchetti was among Laubiès' earliest supporters in the 50s in Paris, and his Galerie Facchetti was the first to exhibit a selection of Laubiès' work. In his Portraits et Aphorismes (2001), René gives expression to the admiration that he held for his long-time friend and colleague. The pithy accolade is especially marked when weighed against the general balance of the text as contained in the limited Italian edition wherein otherwise René does nothing but expose his famous blend of comic wit and venomous tongue.
See René's brief portrait of Facchetti here.
See also Fautrier, Seibel, Facchetti, Le Noci, Magliano.
During our month-long research in India we spoke with three broad sets of informants: 1) local villagers who were privy to Laubiès' various pastimes, 2) western travellers who knew René in that roughly six-year period of winters, and 3) administrators, doctors and other health care workers associated with the elderly patient during his eleven-day residence at Wenlock Government Hospital, Mangalore.
In the later part of February 2008, we received an endowment in the form of an air ticket, Singapore–Paris–Singapore, for the sake of expanding my research. We visited Paris from Feb 24 to Mar 24, 2008. A major objective in going to Paris was obviously to meet Paul Facchetti. We tried our best but failed to meet him, placing blame on our own ill resolve and lack of French. Not unsurprisingly, numerous people – when learning of our project – consistently asked if we'd met Paul Facchetti. "We are trying our best!" But no one offered to arrange a first meeting... Speaking with colleagues, we became aware of Facchetti's immense historical significance, not only through decades-long friendship with Laubies, but of his own individual achievements far more.
It was therefore ultimately Mr. Castor SEIBEL, art critic and collector, who more then anyone else in Paris beseeched us to go and meet Facchetti. "Before it is too late!" he dramatically implored. "Do you know if he's still alive?" he asked. "He's alive," we replied: "A person in New York just had him on the phone, and is on his way to Paris. We're scheduled to meet for lunch tomorrow."
* * *
Let us try to halfway sum up here. It was only from the point of meeting Castor Seibel at Galerie Di Meo, rue des Beaux-Arts, that we began to fathom the immense importance of meeting and speaking with Paul Facchetti. Our deepening research on the life and work of René Laubiès discloses all the more that Facchetti represents a living spring of crucial art-historical data. Paul Facchetti was among Laubiès' earliest supporters in the 50s in Paris, and his Galerie Facchetti was the first to exhibit a selection of Laubiès' work. In his Portraits et Aphorismes (2001), René gives expression to the admiration that he held for his long-time friend and colleague. The pithy accolade is especially marked when weighed against the general balance of the text as contained in the limited Italian edition wherein otherwise René does nothing but expose his famous blend of comic wit and venomous tongue.
See René's brief portrait of Facchetti here.
See also Fautrier, Seibel, Facchetti, Le Noci, Magliano.
Boomtown ports: not for your amusement but your edification
How do such instances of vital sensibility sustain themselves in an ambiance of memory? Why do they impel us, call attention to themselves like private graffiti dragged into alleyways of interfaciality and interspatiality?
What can be supposed from these collectible emissions as if children demanding to be seen and heard, who denounce curatorial arts as bollix and play at what they do until they're made to puke from the grovelling Contemporary Art charade; its growing ranks of Tupperware hosts.
What is to be drawn from these ethnographic galleries that mimic trade procedures of an early-modern era when ridiculous breeds of men changed hands on the docks of cosmopolitan boomtown ports?
[OLD]: Tipped into sheer prefiguration
 |
| René Laubies (French, 1924–2006) Mykonos, 1958. Oil on paper laid on canvas, 65 x 100 cm. (25.6 x 39.4 in.) |
Paul Facchetti has passed away
Facchetti was the consummate mid-20 to early-21st cen global art-historical patriarch. Paul was among Rene Laubiès' earliest supporters in the 50s in Paris, and his Galerie Facchetti was the first to exhibit a selection of Laubiès' work under the banner of nuagisme. In Portraits et Aphorismes (2001), Laubiès expresses great admiration for his long-time friend and colleague Paul Facchetti: "Few galleries can...pride themselves in so many discoveries that mark their era."
See http://bauddhamata.blogspot.com/2010/03/paul-facchetti.html
[OLD]: Interiorising Southeast Asian Histories
Might friars have been among those aromatic cargoes?
[OLD]: Eurasian artist René Laubiès (a draft note)
In many ways a product of South-South trade, its culture exchanges, African-Asian capital flows including peripheral hybridizaiton (Verges 2003) at a time when steam ships ruled the sea.
As Laubies explained it, "I am not French. I am Colonial French.
Nor was he white, but a French-leaning Creole-Afro-Eurasiatic: the product of an overseas "Creole" French jurist and a Catholic Mandarin maman. He only "became" French, officially speaking, sometime in his teens on the eve of emigrating out of Asia, when a passport and other mandated documents had to be procured, his "master key to the Suez Canal," as Ezra Pound would later narrate.
Coming of age he was leaving to study in France, which Morocco at the time then stood for. Another hot country. Someone may have been even pushed to fib about his birth date. How else to account for repeated incongruity appearing in his later professional bio blurbs where date of birth is serially given as 1922 and 1924. For the record's sake, Rene's date of birth as entered into his final passport is February 27, 1922. We captured that image.
Laubies was born in French Cochin China, a dethroned set of kingdoms bundled back together by diverse groups of neighbouring monarchic realms, Cambodia, Laos, Tonkin, Annam, plus a scrape of land that was leased from China. That is what comprised French Indochina, L'Indochine française, a monumental exercise in 'geographical handiwork' (cf. Fletcher 2003: 4:3).
Cochin China was at once the economic while administrative centre of this noosed together peripheral sphere of "greater" (Oriental) France. Today that former entity has virtually dissolved in a modern constructed state called Vietnam.
Even in his old age Laubies travelled with a picture of his mother. He showed it to me once while visiting his rooftop room at Bay View Hotel in Puri (1983).
"She was beautiful," he said. He handed me the photo. I looked at the small, rather aged exposure.
"She looks very nice," I concurred before inquiring: "Was she Vietnamese?" He paused.
"In part," he said, taking time to reflect. He gave the impression that he'd never really thought in those terms.
Some days later he returned to this. "We didn't use the word Vietnamese back then, but Annamite, Indochinese or Cochin-chinoise. Their were Malabar people there too," he explained. "The same as these people." We were living near each other at Varkala at the time. It must have been December 1986.
Let us note that the usages, Vietnam and Vietnamese, were not widespread at the end of the century-long French colonial period. It was roughly from around 1948 that Annam and Annamese were officially supplanted by the modern expression Vietnamese, an historically constructed ethnonym for the majority Viet inhabitants of the land and the name of their language, which then gained immediate ascendancy (Proschan 2002: 614, n. 12).
References
Fletcher, Simpson. 2003. Review of, Vichy in the Tropics: Pétain's National Revolution in Madagascar, Guadeloupe, and Indochina, 1940-44, by Eric T. Jennings. Stanford University Press, 2001, in Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 4:3.
Proschan, Frank. 2002. "Syphilis, Opiomania, and Pederasty": Colonial Constructions of Vietnamese (and French) Social Diseases. Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. (Oct.): 610-636.
Verges, Francoise. 2003. "Writing on Water: Peripheries, Flows, Capital, and Struggles in the Indian Ocean," in Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique - Volume 11, Number 1, (Spring): 241-257.
Laubies on Nuagiste procedure
Rene Laubies, 1981, oil on coated paper mounted on stretched Belgian linen
"When a Chinese painter of the ancient high period began to paint, he first burned incense, calmed and stilled his mind, collected his spirit and meditated. He let life's troubles and sordid propaganda gradually depart. With his spirit opened, he created an inner emptiness and thereby communed with the vital force that impels the universe. In harmony with Nature, it was THAT which directed his brush... This is how I meditate and paint myself, in India and les îles de la Sonde, in the nature that I love, tropical and dense, or in the pure luminosity of the desert." (Laubies, 2001).
Rene Laubies: tracing the non-figurative
We came across Pan Da'an (潘大安) and his valuable essay "Tracing the traceless antelope: Toward an interartistic semiotics of the Chinese sister arts" (College Literature, Feb 1996) while researching the theoretical underpinnings of the colonial French non-figurative painter Rene Laubies. This project requires an historical grasp of the Dhyana/Chan/Taoist contribution as stems from ancient Chinese players, with particular attention to Guo Xi (郭熙, ca. 1020-1090). We have tentatively applied Professor Pan's art-historical analysis of the fabled Chinese Chan/Zen narrative in a way that would hopefully bring into relief and support our own developing take on the "underpinnings of Zen philosophy" being largely retrofitting constrained by the neo-Buddhist fondness for the fabulous. We would also like to lay bare the following point: to effectively decode the neo-Buddhist Zen-myth one needs to simultaneously perceive the persona of Bodhidharma as essentially a Hindu theatrical device and to infer Chan heritage itself to be of 'fundamentally healthy Taoist stock' (J. Correia Gomes de Oliveira).
Art Informel
In its 1950s French art critical context, Art Informel (alternately spelled Art informal) indicated little in the sense of "informal art," the proposition of a casual, loosened or relaxed art handling or simple diminution of formal-ness. Art Informel was pointedly concerned with the non-appearance of form itself, with the un-formal, the un-form-ulated. Nuanced more insightfully, its cardinal aim was the non-allowance, indeed the non-substantiation of any conception or structuration that granted validity to the Continent's fixation on the dissimulative myth of intentionality.
See The reification of dawn's resolve
See The reification of dawn's resolve
Rene Laubies: Aesthetic matters: likes & dislikes
Rene Laubies, it occurs to us, kept mysteriously silent on matters
of aesthetics, formal or informal, vis-à-vis his literal performance
(écriture). We don't recall much from private talks either. His concerns fixed always on matters ontic: method, procedure, spirit of the place, "his rhythm in the doing it." Or as he wrote in the preface of one of Robert
Creeley's early books, "because it's made of ourselves, our emotions,
our angers, our love for the sumptuous ... and our asceticisms."
He spoke more pointedly on things he detested, primarily the French, their gallery owners in particular.
And the things he liked? (It's a very short list): Turner; the natural simplicity of the Chinese painters of the Golden period who 'dipped their hardened hair or their beards in ink, and spat - all to reject habitual technique and become a simple medium of the vital breath; post-war artist Katué Kitasono; Italian collectors; India.
He spoke more pointedly on things he detested, primarily the French, their gallery owners in particular.
And the things he liked? (It's a very short list): Turner; the natural simplicity of the Chinese painters of the Golden period who 'dipped their hardened hair or their beards in ink, and spat - all to reject habitual technique and become a simple medium of the vital breath; post-war artist Katué Kitasono; Italian collectors; India.
Rene Laubies, new bio blurb
Rene Laubies was a painter, translator, writer and Chan master though more Taoistic in quintessence. He was born in Cholon in the Imperial French Colony of Cochin-china to a well-off family around 1917. His father was Réunionnaise French-Colonial. His mother was of solid Sinitic roots of Dynastic upland Phủ Lý Annamese Mandarins though Catholic. He died in the pauper's ward of the Government Hospital in Mangalore India on the morning of 13 November 2006.
He is associated with Tachisme and Art Informel, but particularly linked to Nuagisme or the "Cloudist" group of painters.
He is associated with Tachisme and Art Informel, but particularly linked to Nuagisme or the "Cloudist" group of painters.
Proviso
Our area of focus may be cautiously expressed as "ascetic-arts research methodology" with a strong infiltrative-cum-ethnographic data acquisitional bias. Our work is rigorously non-institutional aside from the fact that the range of South, Southeast and Far-East-Asiatic ascetic-arts traditions that we study are invariably institutional in and of themselves.
Rene's last walk to the beach
And passed through morning palm groves
tall golden grasses
tall golden grasses
bent by breeze bordered everything
bathed in diaphanous sunbeams,
bathed in diaphanous sunbeams,
dissipating mists, smoke from the cottages
(Udma, Kasaragod)
Pound, Laubies, Alvard, Facchetti
1. Someone had written me inquiring about the Colonial French nonfigurative painter Rene Laubies who presumably passed away sometime at the end of 2006 on the Malabar Coast of southern India. The question concerned Rene's translation of the The Cantos by Ezra Pound.
Yes, Rene Laubies is also esteemed as the first translator of Ezra Pound's work into French. In 1983, in Puri (Orissa), Rene related the events to me personally. It was after consulting with Pound himself that Rene decided to translate a "selection" of Cantos. This was back in the early 1950s during that scandalous twelve-year period from 1946 to 1958 when Pound was incarcerated at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washinton D.C., a Federal mental institution. In the 1950s, Rene was also living in the United States in close association with Black Mountain Collage, a place that attracted many of the 20th century's most influential artists. He also taught a stint at the University Alabama, 1956-57. Thus Rene was repeatedly able to meet and consult with Pound who closely mentored the project throughout. I was kindly gifted an original copy by Yannick Tourainne. It is cataloged in French as Cantos et poèmes choisis / Ezra Pound; traduction de Rene Laubies, Paris: P.J. Oswald, 1958. 77 p.
2. Of immense importance to Rene's career is Julien Alvard (d. 1974) who initially launched a modern art movement that he baptised « nuagisme », as based on the paintings of Rene Laubies, Frédéric Benrath, René Duvillier, Fernando Lerin, et al. This important young emerging body of work had first been shown at the Paris gallery of Paul Facchetti, who was remarkably also the first to have exposed Jackson Pollock in France. Some important 50s period details have recently been published by Guy Cloutier (2007). These relate to the Cochin-china-born Laubies's natural affinity to ancient Chinese landscape painting and the assimilation into his practice of its discursive relation between the void and the full, its frontal perspective, non-theatricality, and pervading atmospheric evocation of an ontological allusiveness.
Question: Does anyone have any clear idea on how to contact Paul Facchetti? (Though the fact that the man was born in 1912 might be a hint.)
3. We find it quite inexplicable that after six month we have not been in contact with close associates of knew Rene Laubies—especially those persons who were with Rene in the run up to his final departure for India.
See also
Fautrier, Seibel, Facchetti, Le Noci, Magliano
Nuagisme
Assembling notes around Paul Facchetti
Yes, Rene Laubies is also esteemed as the first translator of Ezra Pound's work into French. In 1983, in Puri (Orissa), Rene related the events to me personally. It was after consulting with Pound himself that Rene decided to translate a "selection" of Cantos. This was back in the early 1950s during that scandalous twelve-year period from 1946 to 1958 when Pound was incarcerated at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washinton D.C., a Federal mental institution. In the 1950s, Rene was also living in the United States in close association with Black Mountain Collage, a place that attracted many of the 20th century's most influential artists. He also taught a stint at the University Alabama, 1956-57. Thus Rene was repeatedly able to meet and consult with Pound who closely mentored the project throughout. I was kindly gifted an original copy by Yannick Tourainne. It is cataloged in French as Cantos et poèmes choisis / Ezra Pound; traduction de Rene Laubies, Paris: P.J. Oswald, 1958. 77 p.
2. Of immense importance to Rene's career is Julien Alvard (d. 1974) who initially launched a modern art movement that he baptised « nuagisme », as based on the paintings of Rene Laubies, Frédéric Benrath, René Duvillier, Fernando Lerin, et al. This important young emerging body of work had first been shown at the Paris gallery of Paul Facchetti, who was remarkably also the first to have exposed Jackson Pollock in France. Some important 50s period details have recently been published by Guy Cloutier (2007). These relate to the Cochin-china-born Laubies's natural affinity to ancient Chinese landscape painting and the assimilation into his practice of its discursive relation between the void and the full, its frontal perspective, non-theatricality, and pervading atmospheric evocation of an ontological allusiveness.
Interrogé par Gérard Xuriguera (Les Années 50, éditions Arted), Laubiès dit lui avoir fait découvrir la peinture chinoise ancienne, "le vide et le plein, la frontalité, l'absence complète de l'expression et du théâtre, l'atmosphère, le suggéré, l'allusif". Des termes qui s'appliquent aussi à son propre travail. Sur ces bases, Alvard lance un mouvement baptisé "nuagisme", d'abord recueilli par la galerie de Paul Facchetti, le premier à avoir exposé Pollock en France (Cloutier).In a 1954 Paris group photo (here) we see Paul Facchetti and Rene Laubies stainding second and third from the left, respectively. The now retired Facchetti was himself an established painter and photographer of some importantc and figures in the following set of images.
Question: Does anyone have any clear idea on how to contact Paul Facchetti? (Though the fact that the man was born in 1912 might be a hint.)
3. We find it quite inexplicable that after six month we have not been in contact with close associates of knew Rene Laubies—especially those persons who were with Rene in the run up to his final departure for India.
See also
Fautrier, Seibel, Facchetti, Le Noci, Magliano
Nuagisme
Assembling notes around Paul Facchetti
Waterlines and Nuagiste archeology; Laubies, Literati and non-figuration
Distillations from an ongoing study, a lofty memorandum of narrow inlet not too obscure, gleaned from a cluster of filtered evocations on a freely given data screen of elegant inquiry
I begin this set of scientific postcards from a site that I continue to scrutinize for its links to a range of kinship myths that endue its coastal caravanserai with a fadedness of anonymous hulls and their humble consignments of edible seaweeds, betel-nut, birds nest, raw palm sugar and fermented bean paste, all unloaded now... Moored to the pilings beneath the quiet moon, the squeaking of her wood as she gently rocks on the shallow inlet of the Endau River where years-back Japanese forces came ashore and marched down the road to establish Shonan.
One of quite a number of un-decreed quasi postcolonial Sinitic sites one finds elapsing in muted contiguity of a writing from elsewhere, a mingling of loci demurred by the gap, but allured by the fact that this deepest southern reach of the Malaya Peninsula constitutes the sole amphiscian zone across the entire Eurasian super-continent of this tropical sun-drenched tract one encounters scores of basal registries strewn as arcs in chance arrangement, scuttled boats half-buried on riverbanks, driftwood drying on curves of beach with scattered whitecaps flagging the gaze hazy forms. Offshore islands floating like clouds on a distant horizon soaked in torrid midday sun that relentlessly elutriates baleful intimations, proximal devices smudged together through supplication of quiet tides. One senses a plunge of sky-blue screens as lambent veils of spatial buoyancy nimbly abide to better intervene upon, lighten to extend emotive schema that discerns exquisite tragic text in polished hue and lithic dross awash one variegated surge of enchantment splashes pure upon shorelines of perception
But in the gap and before this reaches your eyes, we will have spread our sails to monsoon winds over metal blue seas tacking south though squalls. Slept a night at Singapura—gold light seeping through morning window mingles with the greys of camphor and punk smoke. Again set sail through the Straits of Malacca and beyond many days en voyage upon the wind to Arabian Sea waves lapping on shores. Secure safe havens in North Malabar. This tropical littoral that holds great importance in segmentation of ongoing tasks like combing pristine stretches of beach for a secret cove of hermeneutic vantage. Gathering sponges of gentle ideation callously blurred as events or things, re-imbuing them with values of persuasive mutability, fortuitous misreading, primmediacy. A lofty memorandum of narrow inlet not too obscured sees writing and painting, their performative foundations. Embedded conduits run in a background comprised of operant triadic blends perceivable in terms of combing a beach as guided by a mode of predisposed enchantment that constitutes a form of aesthetic yoga, the principle of "li" at work across these current strong seas. An easterly tack in countervailing cycles of tidal rinse that parallel or second as a post-Nuagiste disquisition on Rene Laubies. A coasting vessel foraging through eddies of neglected backwaters, mediating vistas, ink drenched skies as seasonal transhumance shapes the current. Billowed sails over open seas along a multiculti string of pearl-like entrepôts to replenish stores.
A shift in tropes to explicate a manner of painting poetry, its methodological apparati that form when merge a triadic (not dyadic) permutation describable in terms of archaeological excavation that progresses equiliberally accommodating structures ascertained along planes of co-extensive being. The edge, though never quite sure where it is, because it's always grazing downward into new emerging surface aroused from a sense of being-in-field, from traction gained by decoding or amalgamating random areas of layered abandonment, strewn while fragmented, that hold no ambition to be built, presumed or relied on.
In handling calligraphy, or handsome writing we acknowledge that it holds very different social statuses in Oriental and Western art historical cultures. Not only that, in Asiatic legacy, and particularly in Far East literati practice, there is neither compelling nor valid distinction drawn between the elements of poetry, painting and calligraphy, nor interestingly between the notions of image and reflection, idea and word: between presentation and representation. Thus in our current transcultural epoch, painting may not even be considered "painting" but rather an extension of writing (écriture), which covers simultaneously images and letters and therefore rhetoric, and furthermore renders such terms as image and letter remarkably 'irrelevant in a very strict sense' (Inaga).
Research in this area is scarce and in its infancy. It seeks collaboration with an aim of exploring a variety of Far East Asiatic loci, geo- or logo-based attempts to engage absorbing rich sentiments conducive to reading spirits of place near that elegant verge of decrepitude, to ingeniously mooch among relegated elements, sculpt installations of poetic passage elapsing midst crumbling facades, veneers of illustrious sea- land- town- and mind-scapes to detect synchronizations, omitted fragmentation that corroborate and compliment preliminary findings in a way that makes this study stand out as unique in the panorama of literati research.
It attempts to trace the global rise of non-figuration historically, theoretically and stylistically—to use any conveyance at hand in critical analysis of Rene Laubies' painted writing with particular focus on haute époque painters Ma Yuan [馬遠] (1190) and Bada Shanren [八大山人] (1630), both of whom Laubies esteemed as "the pure abstract ones, because the stain held their interest, not the rock or the boat that the stain perhaps suggested" (Laubies). But is this really so?By displaying very credible abstract tendencies that render Ma and Bada obvious precursory candidates, the two must necessarily be seen as figurative artists.
A question must be posed here. From where or whom in history might we start to assume an earliest appearance of non-figuration, pure or otherwise.
In tracing non-figuration's global rise we additionally scrutinize pre-war European "geometric abstraction"—"Mondrian, Kandinsky, Circle and Square" (Laubies)—and set that apart from "lyrical abstraction" that began to appear around 1950 in relatively formal modes of Art Informelle, Tachisme and Nuagisme. For it is lyrical abstraction that brings recognition 'but at the same time it begins to be attacked' (Laubies). No remote lines of descent are detected from pre- to post-war "abstract" tendencies. On this alone one logically assumes non-figuration arises not from pre-war European geometric painting. Now for Laubies this exposes a necessity for painting "to return to nature (abstract in-itself) and be renewed by that."
Our attempted transvaluation of literati currents and distinctly manifest formulaic heritage sites calls for a number of new suppositions or conceptual perspectives that largely pivot on Laubies' statement, "Nature is abstract," a premise we hold and therewith confront a generally accepted abstract vs. real oppositional paradigm. This requires disabling and quarantine. Deprived of standard oppositional assignation, abstraction is a vague and deceptive term with scant analytical utility, a pointless and dissimulative contradistinction placed near either radical aniconicistic non-figuration or that pre-photographic era of taxonomic compulsion [to "represent"]; and to which Sinitic language likely had no term for.
We contravene any niggling sense of cower or infringement, an inappropriateness of disrepresentation in scholarly art-historical discourse and setting our critiquing filters high against every form of figurative manga incursion together with their propagandistic cum pornographic corollaries. This complete separation of manga practice from set analytical fundaments of Nuagiste poiesis fiercely oversees depriving archaeology its unimpeded sanction to fashion the findings of its own excavations prompted by institutional payola.
In its current edition, this intensely naturalist approach to poiesis, its hermeneutic outcomes and their presentations, comprise methodological documentation on a range of adjunct interventions. Through collaborative reliance, appropriative attention on artifactuality in-sub-prime notionality, their constituent encasements of impending actuation, holds methodologial primacy in irrepressible urge to amend inner logic of one's mirroring apparatus mired in quarries of color field allusiveness, where painting as an archaeological intercession stretches out in need of tantalizing tropes through field after field of tropic inadequacy, bearing stain of data mine probity, predicated pleas for off-site storage, consensual poetics of interred elutriation to answer for itself via artifacts, facts and extenuating treatments imbued in a sediment that assigns painting to the role archaeological recovery.
Having started to discuss the work at hand one is immediately confounded by a dearth of terms insufficient to expound a poetic painting born amidst crevasses of cultural hybridity nourished in the no man's lands of ascetic transmutation. Cloudist or Post-Nuagiste methodology, while displaying hermeneutic ramifications scored by besmirched naturalistic genies hiding in the margins of deconstructive practice, procedural conventions that plainly evince stylistic elements completely their own, while initially functioning as prudent probes. But its actions go far beyond mere problem proposal: for it marks, defaces, flattens, distorts, under-rides, and demeans its own creative push to eradicate completely and then leave in the lurch, a rude mistrust that snubs 'all reliance on technique and virtuosity' (Laubies). Its gravity is felt as aesthetic quandary, unpredictable pocks appearing on the surface of composure and release. These are not perused through mythical inventions but as spatial spheres, which they elutriate while holding momentous 'recourse to divinity' (Zoetmulder) with inbuilt ease resolution and resolve. Laubiesan practice leaves much to chance.
How to accept this exhilarating challenge and crack the artist's liminal appeal when standard terminology so deeply disappoints? Let us offer a hint. Try to acknowledge a pre-existent Cloudist dictum and see what is given to explain your subject in a manner that eludes every convoluted reading of the stain of sliding cloud at sea...
In tracing non-figuration's global rise we additionally scrutinize pre-war European "geometric abstraction"—"Mondrian, Kandinsky, Circle and Square" (Laubies)—and set that apart from "lyrical abstraction" that began to appear around 1950 in relatively formal modes of Art Informelle, Tachisme and Nuagisme. For it is lyrical abstraction that brings recognition 'but at the same time it begins to be attacked' (Laubies). No remote lines of descent are detected from pre- to post-war "abstract" tendencies. On this alone one logically assumes non-figuration arises not from pre-war European geometric painting. Now for Laubies this exposes a necessity for painting "to return to nature (abstract in-itself) and be renewed by that."
Our attempted transvaluation of literati currents and distinctly manifest formulaic heritage sites calls for a number of new suppositions or conceptual perspectives that largely pivot on Laubies' statement, "Nature is abstract," a premise we hold and therewith confront a generally accepted abstract vs. real oppositional paradigm. This requires disabling and quarantine. Deprived of standard oppositional assignation, abstraction is a vague and deceptive term with scant analytical utility, a pointless and dissimulative contradistinction placed near either radical aniconicistic non-figuration or that pre-photographic era of taxonomic compulsion [to "represent"]; and to which Sinitic language likely had no term for.
We contravene any niggling sense of cower or infringement, an inappropriateness of disrepresentation in scholarly art-historical discourse and setting our critiquing filters high against every form of figurative manga incursion together with their propagandistic cum pornographic corollaries. This complete separation of manga practice from set analytical fundaments of Nuagiste poiesis fiercely oversees depriving archaeology its unimpeded sanction to fashion the findings of its own excavations prompted by institutional payola.
In its current edition, this intensely naturalist approach to poiesis, its hermeneutic outcomes and their presentations, comprise methodological documentation on a range of adjunct interventions. Through collaborative reliance, appropriative attention on artifactuality in-sub-prime notionality, their constituent encasements of impending actuation, holds methodologial primacy in irrepressible urge to amend inner logic of one's mirroring apparatus mired in quarries of color field allusiveness, where painting as an archaeological intercession stretches out in need of tantalizing tropes through field after field of tropic inadequacy, bearing stain of data mine probity, predicated pleas for off-site storage, consensual poetics of interred elutriation to answer for itself via artifacts, facts and extenuating treatments imbued in a sediment that assigns painting to the role archaeological recovery.
Having started to discuss the work at hand one is immediately confounded by a dearth of terms insufficient to expound a poetic painting born amidst crevasses of cultural hybridity nourished in the no man's lands of ascetic transmutation. Cloudist or Post-Nuagiste methodology, while displaying hermeneutic ramifications scored by besmirched naturalistic genies hiding in the margins of deconstructive practice, procedural conventions that plainly evince stylistic elements completely their own, while initially functioning as prudent probes. But its actions go far beyond mere problem proposal: for it marks, defaces, flattens, distorts, under-rides, and demeans its own creative push to eradicate completely and then leave in the lurch, a rude mistrust that snubs 'all reliance on technique and virtuosity' (Laubies). Its gravity is felt as aesthetic quandary, unpredictable pocks appearing on the surface of composure and release. These are not perused through mythical inventions but as spatial spheres, which they elutriate while holding momentous 'recourse to divinity' (Zoetmulder) with inbuilt ease resolution and resolve. Laubiesan practice leaves much to chance.
How to accept this exhilarating challenge and crack the artist's liminal appeal when standard terminology so deeply disappoints? Let us offer a hint. Try to acknowledge a pre-existent Cloudist dictum and see what is given to explain your subject in a manner that eludes every convoluted reading of the stain of sliding cloud at sea...
*
Rene Laubies was born in Cholon in the Imperial French Colony of Cochin-china to a well-off family circa 1917. His father's line was Réunionnaise Colonial-Creole. His mother was of solid Sinitic roots from upland Phu-Ly Annamese Dynastic Mandarins. Rene Laubies died on the Malabar coast, in the pauper's ward of Mangalore Government Hospital, on a cool sunny morning, 13 November 2006.Troy Harris (troydeanharris@gmail.com)
References
Cahill, James. 1994. The Painter's Practice, How artists lived and worked in Traditional China.
Cantos et poèmes choisis / Ezra Pound. 1958. Traduction de Rene Laubies, Paris: P.J. Oswald. Harambourg, Lydia. 1998.
"Rene Laubies: L’Ecole de Paris, 1945-1965," Dictionnaire des peintres. http://www.bj-fineart.fr/documentation/laubies/peintres.php
Harris, Troy. 2005. Grafting Plato's Shadow Play: a spray can version of metaleptic mimesis. Ashé Journal, Vol 5, Issue 1, 3-33. http://ashejournal.com/index.php?id=42
Harris, Troy. 1990. On Laubiès' Work. René Laubiès, Octobre-Novembre 1990, Galerie Michel Broomhead, Paris; Achevé d'imprimer sur les presses de Mira Impression à Libourne, Conception: Canovas Belchi.
Inaga, Shigemi. 2007. "Is Art History Globalizable? A critical commentary from a Far Eastern Point of view." In Elkins (ed.), Is Art History Global?: 249-279.
Laubiès, René. 2001. Titratti e Aforismi / Portraits et Aphorismes (bilingual, Italian and French), Morgana Edizioni, Firenze.
Verges, Francoise. 2003. Writing on Water: Peripheries, Flows, Capital, and Struggles in the Indian Ocean / Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique / Vol. 11, No. 1, spring. Duke University Press.
Zoetmulder, P.J. 1974. Kalangwan: A Survey of Old Javanese Literature. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
References
Cahill, James. 1994. The Painter's Practice, How artists lived and worked in Traditional China.
Cantos et poèmes choisis / Ezra Pound. 1958. Traduction de Rene Laubies, Paris: P.J. Oswald. Harambourg, Lydia. 1998.
"Rene Laubies: L’Ecole de Paris, 1945-1965," Dictionnaire des peintres. http://www.bj-fineart.fr/documentation/laubies/peintres.php
Harris, Troy. 2005. Grafting Plato's Shadow Play: a spray can version of metaleptic mimesis. Ashé Journal, Vol 5, Issue 1, 3-33. http://ashejournal.com/index.php?id=42
Harris, Troy. 1990. On Laubiès' Work. René Laubiès, Octobre-Novembre 1990, Galerie Michel Broomhead, Paris; Achevé d'imprimer sur les presses de Mira Impression à Libourne, Conception: Canovas Belchi.
Inaga, Shigemi. 2007. "Is Art History Globalizable? A critical commentary from a Far Eastern Point of view." In Elkins (ed.), Is Art History Global?: 249-279.
Laubiès, René. 2001. Titratti e Aforismi / Portraits et Aphorismes (bilingual, Italian and French), Morgana Edizioni, Firenze.
Verges, Francoise. 2003. Writing on Water: Peripheries, Flows, Capital, and Struggles in the Indian Ocean / Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique / Vol. 11, No. 1, spring. Duke University Press.
Zoetmulder, P.J. 1974. Kalangwan: A Survey of Old Javanese Literature. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Independent Ascetic-Arts Curation
We deplore being drawn into association with any form of religious or dogmaor ideology, their attendant obsessions with consolidation of legitimacy and concern for lineage purity, which is why we arrived to ascetic-arts curatorial analysis.
Generally, in the arts we enjoy a milieu conducive to the rise of theoretic affinities and the follow-on schools that express these; yet schools as opposed to sects manifest by a freedom to thoroughly till the foundations of their being.
Generally, in the arts we enjoy a milieu conducive to the rise of theoretic affinities and the follow-on schools that express these; yet schools as opposed to sects manifest by a freedom to thoroughly till the foundations of their being.
Pound's portrait
Laubies' portrait [of Ezra Pound] only underscored what he had told me personally (ca 1989) about visiting Pound at the facility for the criminally insane in the late 50's. He remarked that Pound – having been there for about ten years – was 'not at all affected by the environment. He got on well with a supervising official and all sorts of people were able to visit him.' He characterized Pound as 'a large, strong and virile man.' "He spoke French very well", Laubies remarked, and French was their language of communication. 'Pound was always curious about ancient cultures and always researching something new. Even in his late years he studied Egyptian hieroglyphs... In the end he grew tired of living and died in Venice...' In 1989 after staying in his 6th-floor walk up at 3 Rue des Beaux-arts, Paris, I met Laubies in Venice. We visited Pound’s grave in San Michele Cemetery on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore.
See Pound, https://bauddhamata.blogspot.my/2010/06/ezra-pound.html.
See Pound, https://bauddhamata.blogspot.my/2010/06/ezra-pound.html.
Ezra Pound
I do not remember having had any difficulties returning to visit Pound at St. Elisabeth's Asylum. I asked him whether the surroundings bothered him: "Not at all, these are the only acceptable Americans." It was a pleasant irony of fate at the time that he became both famous and celebrated. He got the Bollingen Prize and a Pound newsletter telling of his works being translated into 14 languages, academic papers and books. The room was a mass of accumulated books and letters stacked on tables and chairs... there was a pretty woman too (very bad painter), a former Admiral, several sinologists and admirers. He gave me an enormous list of people to see that included Robert Creeley. He always loved to gather, give advice and connect everyone as the time he sought dollars from John Quinn for Joyce, was "il miglior fabbro" of Eliott, would militate for Vorticism, Brancusi or Gaudier-Breska. When I told him that I was born in Saigon: "Ah, that's why! Only Europeans with a master key to the Suez Canal are worth something...." In '58 he was still a force of nature. What a contrast fifteen years later, tea cup, tired, he kept mute and let Domenica de Roux do the talking and turn his bust by Arno Breker. He died in Venice silent as always, on his tomb a laurel shrub inclines toward the offerings, flowers and seeds of young American poets.
Je ne me souviens pas avoir eu de difficultés à rendre visite à Pound à l'Asile de Sainte-Elisabeth. Comme je lui demandais si ce voisinage le gênait : "Mais non, ce sont les seuls américains acceptables". Par une agréable ironie du sort, c'est a ce moment la qu'il est devenu célèbre et célébré. Il avait eu le prix Bollingen. Une Pound's news letter donnait les nouvelles de ses traductions en 14 langues, des thèses et ouvrages sur lui. Dans cette chambre, accumulations de livres et de lettres sur les chaises et les tables… il y avait aussi une jolie femme (très mauvais peintre) un ex-amiral, plusieurs sinologues et admirateurs. Il me donna une liste énorme de gens à voir dont Robert Creeley. Il aimait toujours rassembler, conseiller, orienter les uns et les autres comme au temps au il demandait des dollars à John Quinn pour Joyce, était "il miglior fabbro" di Eliott, militait pour le Vorticisme, Brancusi ou Gaudier-Breska. Quand je lui dis que j'étais ne à Saigon : "Ah, c'est pour cela ! Seuls les européens qui ont passe le Canal de Suez valent quelque chose...". Il était encore en '58 une force de la nature. Quel contraste quinze ans après, tasse, lasse, il restait muet laissant parler Dominique de Roux qui tournait autour de son buste par Arno Breker. Il est mort à Venise toujours silencieux, sur sa tombe un arbuste s'incline sur les offrandes, fleurs et graines de jeunes poètes américains.
Rene Laubies, Portraits et Aphorismes, (from the forward) 2001.
Laubies on Nuagiste procedure
When a Chinese painter of the ancient high period began to paint, he first burned incense and gathered his thoughts in the calm of silence, concentrated his mind and meditated. He let life's annoyances slowly fade. His spirit free, he created space and communicated with the vital force that impels the universe. In harmony with Nature, it was She who guided his brush... This is how I meditate and paint myself, in India and the Sunda Islands, in the nature that I love, tropical and dense, or in the pure luminosity of the desert.
Quand un peintre chinois des Hautes-Epoques se mettait à peindre, il brûlait de l'encens, se recueillait dans le calme et le silence, concentrait son esprit et méditait. Il laissait les ennuis et le sordide quotidien s'évanouir peu à peu. Son esprit libéré, il faisait le vide en lui et communiait ainsi avec l'élan vital qui meut l'univers. Alors, en harmonie avec la Nature, c'est Elle qui guidait son pinceau... C'est ainsi que je médite et peins moi-même, dans les Indes, les îles de la Sonde, dans la nature que j'aime tropicale et dense ou dans la pure lumière du désert.
Rene Laubies, Portraits et Aphorismes, (from the forward) 2001.
Laubies, Aphorism No. 8
Pre-war abstract and geometric painting (Mondrian, Kandinsky, Circle and Square, De Stilj) has no great diffusion. It's only after 1950 that abstract painting starts to be recognized, and at the same time attacked. It is Lyrical abstraction, Tachiste, informele, Nuagiste that sustains. And this is why I think that abstract art is still in its infancy. It should return to nature (which is abstract) and be renewed by that.
La peinture abstraite et géométrique avant-guerre (Mondrian, Kandinsky, Cercle et Carré, De Stilj) n'a pas une grande diffusion. Ce n'est qu'après 50 que la peinture abstraite commence à être reconnue, et du même coup attaquée. C'est l'abstraction lyrique, tachiste, informelle, nuagiste, qui l'emporte. Et c'est pour cela que je pense que l'art abstrait n'en est qu'à ses débuts. Il doit rejoindre la nature (qui est abstraite) et se renouveler par là.
(Laubies, 2001.)
Jean Fautrier
Passing through "la Vallée-aux-Loups", one arrived to Messagier's house. Fautrier had filled it with old furniture, dolls, Indian wall paper. Fautrier received sumptuously: glasses from Venice, old dishes and the ferocious machine-gunning of his contemporaries. Especially Dubuffet, César and others. There were always many writers and pretty women (at a given moment, a veritable harem: arriving one day I saw an enormous mulatto on the knees of an old shriveled critic). There was Paulhan, Ungaretti, Palma Bucarelli, Alvard, Iris Clert, jealous of Iolas and Tarika. Fautrier then retorted: "But my poor Iris, you have no money, you...." He discovered me and helped me win the Fénéon Prize in 1954. A critic of art, of which I made a career (what I made was an enemy; what could be more natural); each time I exhibit I am sent a dwarf, Japanese by preference, mulching at regular intervals "Fautrier, Fautrier." So if Fautrier were someone's father (he hardly liked paternity), it would be the materialists like Tapies, Leroy and others...
En passant par "la Vallée aux Loups", on arrivait à la maison de Messagier. Fautrier l'avait remplie de meubles anciens, poupées, papier peint à l'indienne. Fautrier recevait somptueusement : verres de Venise, vaisselle ancienne et mitraillage féroce de ses contemporains. Surtout Dubuffet, César et autres. Il y avait toujours beaucoup d'écrivains et de jolies femmes (à un moment donne, un véritable harem: arrivant un jour j'aperçus une énorme mulâtresse sur les genoux du critique rabougri). Il y avait Paulhan, Ungaretti, Palma Bucarelli, Alvard, Iris Clert, jalouse de Iolas et de Tarika. Fautrier lui rétorquait alors: "Mais ma pauvre Iris, tu n'as pas d'argent, toi…". Il m'avait découvert quand il ma fait donner le Prix Fénéon en 1954. Un critique d'art dont j'ai fait la carrière (ce qui m'en a fait un ennemi, quoi de plus naturel), chaque fois que j'expose m'envoie une naine, japonaise de préférence, paillant à intervalles réguliers "Fautrier, Fautrier". Alors que si Fautrier est le père de quelque chose (il n'aimait guère la paternité), ce serait des matiéristes comme Tapies, Leroy et autres…
(Laubies, 2001.)
Mark Tobey
Faithful to the characters of Henry James he descended upon the Hotel Albany: gilt candelabras and cuddly toys 1900. He arrived from Basel where for the first time in his life he said "I have a house thanks to Beyeler." With Julien Alvard, whom much he loved (and who had also had an accident on his way to see him in California) we went to dinner at George Salles' house. Mark Tobey brought his paintings on paper and leaned them against the walls of the dining room, between Picasso, Masson and my paintings on the floor. "All of that holds and is held" said George Salles. Thus today I see a very beautiful red Tobey in the French museum.
Fidèle aux personnages d'Henry James il descendait à l'Hôtel d'Albany : candélabres dorés, peluches 1900. Il venait de Bâle où pour la première fois de sa vie disait-il "J'ai une maison grâce à Bayeler". Avec Julien Alvard qu'il aimait beaucoup (et qui avait eu un accident en allant le voir en Californie) nous allions dîner chez Salles. Mark Tobey apportait ses peintures sur papier et les alignait contre les murs de la salle à manger, entre les Picasso, Masson et mes tableaux par terre. "Tout cela tient et se soutient" disait Georges Salles. C'est ainsi que je vis un très beau Tobey rouge, aujourd'hui dans les musée français.
(Laubies, 2001.)
Jean-Pierre Wilhelm ["A Germany turned in on itself"]
When I was tired of swallowing the snakes on which Paris nourishes its painters, I left either for Italo Magliano's place in Milan, or for Jean-Pierre Wilhelm's place in Düsseldorf. As I had known him in Paris as one who had translated all that was difficult, Malraux, Michaux, etc., when he returned to Germany I advised him to open a gallery. He and Jährling, in Wuppertal, brought a touch of something "other" to a Germany turned in on itself. This gallery [Gallery 22] served as springboard for the talent of Manfred de la Motte. He brought to light our German painter friends: Hoehme, Gaul, Schultze as well as the painters of Julien Alvard and Fautrier.
Quand j'étais fatigue d'avaler les couleuvres dont Paris nourrit ses peintres, je partais soit à Milan chez Italo Magliano, soit chez Jean-Pierre Wilhelm à Düsseldorf. Je l'avais connu à Paris, alors qu'il traduisait tout ce qui était difficile : Malraux, Michaux, etc. quand il retourna en Allemagne je lui conseillai d'ouvrir une galerie. Lui et Jährling, à Wuppertal, apportèrent une note "autre", dans une Allemagne repliée sur elle-même. Cette galerie servit de tremplin au talent de Manfred de la Motte. Il y fit connaitre nos amis peintres allemands : Hoehme, Gaul, Schultze, ainsi qui les peintres de Julien Alvard et Fautrier.
(Laubies, 2001.)N.B.: Jean-Pierre Wilhelm (1912–1968) was a collector, art historian and later the founder of Gallery 22 in Düsseldorf. He made contacts with gallery owners, especially in Paris, and with artists from abroad. Rolf Järling owned Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal.
Alexandre Iolas
His room at the Hotel Crillon was the cave of Ali-Baba: Greek marble, Egyptian statues, Matisse and Braque, small Max Ernst and Brauner, large Matta; all of that is now in Huston [with the Menil Collection] and at his villa in Athens all out of gold. His taste for and refinements to definitively established surrealism. Aesthete, he played with pink and yellow diamonds in his pocket, and paid us with dollars in boxes of chocolates. Former dancer he lived in and by beauty.
Sa chambre à l'Hôtel Crillon était la caverne d'Alì-Baba: marbre grec, statues égyptiennes, Matisse et Braque, petits Max Ernst et Brauner, grands Matta; tout cela maintenant est au Musée de Huston et dans sa villa à Athènes tout en or. Son goût sûr et raffiné à établi définitivement le surréalisme. Esthète, il jouait avec des diamants roses et jaunes dans sa poche, et nous payait avec des dollars dans des boîtes de chocolats. Ancien danseur il a vécu dans et par la beauté.
(Laubies, 2001.)
Colette Allendy
Petite and replete, she reigned in her own Hotel de Passy where Artaud had put together "The Cenci." She was surrounded by the "Artauds": Blin, Marthe Robert, Adamov, Mrs Jouve and Paule Thévenin. Not having any prejudice, she accepted me among Picabia and Bryen and some "Café Society Americans."
Petite et replète, elle régnait dans son hôtel de Passy où Artaud avait monté les "Cenci". Il y avait autour d'elle les " Artaud" : Blin, Marthe Robert, Adamov, madame Jouve et Paule Thévenin. N'ayant aucun préjugé elle m'accepta entre Picabia et Bryen et quelques "Café society américaines".
(Laubies, 2001.)
Matta
At Matta's, one fills the swimming pool: "This pipe is me, all the money that I make sets out again immediately. My women, my families, my house, and this swindler who exploits me (our merchant)..."
Chez Matta, on remplit la piscine: "Ce tuyau c'est moi, tout l'argent que je fais repart immédiatement. Mes femmes, mes familles, mes maison, et cet escroc la qui m'exploite (notre marchand)…"
(Laubies, 2001.)
Nina Kandinsky
Nina, forever young at 80 years, walked through Gastaat with all of her diamonds on day and night. One night she was strangled by and for her diamond reverie, but then found them in quantities hidden behind the radiators. She lived just for that, as her friends the old billionaires who held the New York galleries in the 50s and 60s (before the tsar Castelli) lived just for whisky. A little babyish but managing Kandinsky's funds very well, like every painter's widow, she only had a liking for "her" period, forsaking Kandinsky's own best painting — that of Munich — created under the reign of a mistress — there's another.
Nina, toujours jeune a 80 ans, se promenait à Gastaat avec tous ses diamants en plein jour, en pleine nuit. Une nuit elle a été étranglée par et pour sa rivière de diamants, mais on en a trouvé des quantités cachés derrière les radiateurs. Elle ne vivait que pour cela, comme ses amies les vieilles milliardaires comme ses amies les vieilles milliardaires qui tenaient les galeries de New-York en 50-60 avant le tzar Castelli) ne vivaient que pour le whisky. Un peu bébête mais gérant très bien le fonds Kandinsky, elle n'avait comme toutes les veuves de peintres que " sa " période, délaissant la meilleure période de Kandinsky – celle de Munich, mais faite sous le règne d'une maitresse – à une autre.
(Laubies, 2001.)
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