SHUSAKU ARAKAWA, Dear Picasso (Bonjour Picasso)...Kiss me Quick and Write Me Soon, from the portfolio "Hommage a Picasso" (Homage to Picasso) 1973, Color Silkscreen on Satin Arches Velincarton. Signed, Dated & Numbered. Framed

Rarely to market, especially stateside, this dazzling color silkscreen on firm satin Arches velincarton paper, "Homage to Picasso" (Hommage a Picasso). It features text with colors splayed like paint, juxtaposed over an upside down black and white vintage photogrph. It  is from the German publisher Propyläen-Verlag's epic eponymous portfolio ("Homage to Picasso") published in Europe and featuring works by the world's foremost artists. The present work is hand signed, dated and numbered from the edition of 90. (there were 30 (XXX) Roman Numeral artist's proofs). It is framed in a plexiglass (perspex) frame with handmade wood backing. Not examined outside of the vintage frame but appears to be in excellent condition.

This multi colored print depicts a deliberately washed out handwritten letter to Picasso in dripping paint, and on the bottom, in blocked typed letters, reads the following:

"WHEN ALWAYS AND NOT SIGNIFIES SOMETHING, THE SIGNIFIED OR "IF" BELONGS TO THE ZERO SET. HAVE WE MET BEFORE"

Arakawa's "Hommage a Picasso" is  an important example of his way of displacing sometimes cryptic words onto images as a form of artistic philosophy and performance.

To celebrate Picasso's 90th birthday in 1973, the Berlin-based publishing house Propyläen-Verlag published an incredible 5 volume portfolio (plus an AP) with dozens of the world's most important artists. The present work was part of Volume 2 of 5, featuring works by  Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint Phalle, Heinz Mack, R. B.Kitaj, Richard Hamilton, David Hockney, Cy Twombly, Enrico Baj, Nicholas Krushenick, Shusaku Arakawa, Hans Bellmer and Jan Voss. 

Shusaku Arakawa (荒川 修作 Arakawa Shūsaku, July 6, 1936 – May 18, 2010) who spoke of himself as an “eternal outsider” and “abstractionist of the distant future,” first studied mathematics and medicine at the University of Tokyo, and art at the Musashino Art University. He was a member of Tokyo’s Neo-Dadaism Organizers, a precursor to The Neo-Dada movement. Arakawa’s early works were first displayed in the infamous Yomiuri Independent Exhibition, a watershed event for postwar Japanese avant-garde art. Arakawa arrived in New York in 1961 with fourteen dollars in his pocket and a telephone number for Marcel Duchamp, whom he phoned from the airport and over time formed a close friendship. He started using diagrams within his paintings as philosophical propositions. Jean-Francois Lyotard has said of Arakawa’s work that it “makes us think through the eyes,” and Hans-Georg Gadamer has described it as transforming “the usual constancies of orientation into a strange, enticing game—a game of continually thinking out.” Quoting Paul Celan, Gadamer also wrote of the work: "There are songs to sing beyond the human." Arthur Danto has found Arakawa to be “the most philosophical of contemporary artists." For his part, Arakawa has declared: “Painting is only an exercise, never more than that.” Arakawa and Madeline Gins are co-founders of the Reversible Destiny Foundation, an organization dedicated to the use of architecture to extend the human lifespan. They have co-authored books, including Reversible Destiny, which is the catalogue of their Guggenheim exhibition, Architectural Body (University of Alabama Press, 2002) and Making Dying Illegal (New York: Roof Books, 2006).

SIGNATURE

 Hand signed and numbered in graphite pencil on the front.  Bottom right recto features the distinctive blind stamp of German publisher Propyläen-Verlag, with embossed text: "Véritable Papier D'Arches, Satiné. 

EXHIBITION HISTORY

The Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens Presents Homage to Picasso Portfolio, 1973 March 27 – April 28, 2013 (another edition)