César BALDACCINI dit CESAR (1921 - 1998) Lot n° 24

COMPRESSION OF COCA-COLA BOTTLES 1992 Glass Unique piece H. 14 cm, W. 37 cm, D. 16 cm Provenance Private collection Original certificate of the artist. "The Compressions obviously have a radicality that Chamberlain's sculptures do not have, as they are still based on an expressionist aesthetic and, above all, on composition "* Catherine Millet In the retrospective exhibition César at the Jeu de Paume gallery in Paris (10 June - 19 October 1997) Daniel Abadie talks to him about the glass work that he carried out in a workshop in Murano. Question from Daniel Abadie: "How is it possible to make glass compressions because even the two words seem antithetical?" César explains: "In the kiln, we make a core, we take the glass bottle, we heat it and then we automatically glue the end of the bottle..../... There are seven to eight workers, and several ovens that do the same thing. When everything is hot, they all come together at the same time in front of me, each with his bottle at the end of the cane. And I say, "Put that one there.../...then we turn, we make a block, we tap..." and we start again until we find the shape of the cube. That's the glassmaker's job... "** Originally, the compressions date back to 1958, when César, who went looking for his raw materials at scrap metal stores, brought back some non-ferrous materials, copper or aluminium, with the intention of integrating them into a sculpture. He saw them and appropriated these compressed blocks of copper plates and ribbons, which became his first compressions... From 1968 onwards, he took up the technique again, broadening the range of materials used, until he transposed them into glass in the 1990s. * Catherine Millet Gestes de César, César. OEuvres de 1947 à 1993, cat expo, Paris-Marseille RNM P. 31 ** Extrait entretien Sur la sculpture, César et Daniel Abadie, Catalogue César, Galerie du Jeu de Paume, Paris P. 23, 1997.