Pierre Alechinsky (né en 1927) Lot n° 214

Both floors, 1959 Oil on canvas. Signed and titled on the back. Oil on canvas. Signed and titled on the reverse. H_148 cm L_82 cm Source: - Toninelli Milan gallery. - sale Christie's London, 11 December 1997, Lot 7. - private collection Exhibitions: - Venice Biennale, 1960 - Gallery Toninelli, Milan - The Palazzo Grassi, Venice. Bibliography: Reproduced in "Alechinsky", J. Putman 1967/1990 under number 29. A certificate of authenticity from Pierre Alechinsky and Frédéric Charron will be given to the purchaser. "The two floors" is a major and central work of 1959. It evokes Alechinsky's childhood memories, as Jacques Putman recalls in "Alechnisky" by Editions Fabbri, Milan 1967. At that time, he lived in the same Parisian building as the Israeli writer Amos Kenan. In 1961, he published a book entitled "Les tireurs de langue", containing Kenan's ink drawings and texts translated into French by Christiane Rochefort, who also lived in the same building but on a different floor. We can therefore imagine the harmony of these floors represented here. We can also recognize several iconic African masks dear to Pierre Alechinsky. Like a reminiscence, this work represents and sublimates the artist's memories. The conscious memories are flattened out on the canvas and this is how the buried memories of the unconscious are drawn in the creative gesture. The time spent now and in the future is one, like a freeze on the image of the psyche. Here are harmonized the snippets of memories creating a feeling in the present state. The top and bottom in the literal sense of the two floors of this building or the ground on which Pierre Alechinsky played on the floor of childhood where above there was that of adults, the figuration of the state of consciousness and unconsciousness, between these two floors there is an between ground, the Self. We are here before a personal