Seule la Fête est Permanente, is a phrase that the artist gives in English as, “The Eternal Network is Everlasting” but in French it carries several additional readings including, only the party is permanent, or, alone the celebration continues… Filliou with the artist George Brecht, ran a collaborative space for three years, a “Center for Permanent Creation” in Villefranche-sur-Mer, a sun drenched village on the Cote d’Azur where, among other things, Jean Cocteau painted a marvelous chapel for the fishermen. Filliou began working with art in the 1950s associating with many creatives that included Marcel Broodthaers, George Brecht, Ben Patterson and George Maciunas of Fluxus. Filliou’s philosophic, poetic and unpretentious works of concept art transmit a kind of jubilant pleasure in their ideas, rendered in a variety of materials that often feel childlike, and genuine.
The artist said, “I am a genius without talent, and if I explain to you what I mean by genius you will see my point. I think merely to be a man or a woman is to be a genius, but that most people forget it (they’re too busy exploiting their talents). Not only do I remember it but I claim it, and I make use of it in such a simple, untalented way that the difficulties you say people have to understand my work are merely apparent. I give them the clues to it, and particularly I have given people the secret of Permanent Creation.”
Peter Freeman, Inc. New York
3 March – 14 April 2018
140 Grand Street, New York, NY
A major work from 1968 by Marcel Broodthaers is running in the lower gallery. Titled, Le catalogue et la signature (The catalog and the signature). The title suggests that the sequence of 80 slides projected onto an image bearing canvas with the artists initials painted in white on a black square, is a catalog MB’s oeuvre. For a lover of Broodthaers highly poetic and terrifically amusing work, this fine and rare piece is uniquely available to enjoy…
Robert Filliou: Seule la Fête est Permanente: Works 1962-1984
Courtesy Peter Freeman, Inc. New York / Paris and the Estate of Robert Filliou. Installation images by Nick Knight.
Robert Filliou: Seule la Fête est Permanente: Works 1962-1984
Courtesy Peter Freeman, Inc. New York / Paris and the Estate of Robert Filliou. Installation images by Nick Knight.
Robert Filliou: Seule la Fête est Permanente: Works 1962-1984
Courtesy Peter Freeman, Inc. New York / Paris and the Estate of Robert Filliou. Installation images by Nick Knight.
Robert Filliou, The Frozen Exhibition, 1972
felt covered cardboard with stamp, photographs and printed texts
Robert Filliou: Seule la Fête est Permanente: Works 1962-1984
Courtesy Peter Freeman, Inc. New York / Paris and the Estate of Robert Filliou. Installation images by Nick Knight.
MARCEL BROODTHAERS, Le catalogue et la signature, 1968.
Courtesy Peter Freeman, Inc.
MARCEL BROODTHAERS, Le catalogue et la signature, 1968.
Courtesy Peter Freeman, Inc.
L. Brandon Krall is an Artist-Filmmaker-Curator-Writer