Pierre Jahan French, 1909-2003
Le Cinéma, 1970
Photo-colllage sur décalcomanie.
22 x 30 cm
Unique
Signed by the artist on the lower left, titled on the back.
His photocollages are similar to Max Ernst's collages for Une Semaine de bonté (1934), a true collage-novel. Like Max Ernst, the technique allows Jahan to give sight to apparitions, or unexpected analogies. But he excludes the mystical occultism of Max Ernst in favour of humour, or small political or cultural vignettes. The Temps moderne series oscillates between the burlesque imagination, such as L'Opérette, an almost Dada composition in its superimpositions, or 1944..., L'Homme qui venait du froid (The Man who came from the Cold), and L'Age d'or (The Golden Age), casting an ironic eye on history and current events. Cinéma, tackling the issue of voyeurism, gives at the same time a strange, dismembered viw of the body. Just like in Hans Bellmer's dolls, the body is wrapped and the limbs multiply, following the spectator's eye.
His photocollages are similar to Max Ernst's collages for Une Semaine de bonté (1934), a true collage-novel. Like Max Ernst, the technique allows Jahan to give sight to apparitions, or unexpected analogies. But he excludes the mystical occultism of Max Ernst in favour of humour, or small political or cultural vignettes. The Temps moderne series oscillates between the burlesque imagination, such as L'Opérette, an almost Dada composition in its superimpositions, or 1944..., L'Homme qui venait du froid (The Man who came from the Cold), and L'Age d'or (The Golden Age), casting an ironic eye on history and current events. Cinéma, tackling the issue of voyeurism, gives at the same time a strange, dismembered viw of the body. Just like in Hans Bellmer's dolls, the body is wrapped and the limbs multiply, following the spectator's eye.