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MICHEL NEDJAR:
Retrospective

May 3 - June 29, 2002
Tues-Sat: 10 AM-6PM;
and by appointment.

Judy A. Saslow Gallery
300 West Superior
Chicago, Illinois 60610
Telephone: 312-943-0530
http://www.jsaslowgallery.com

So man tries to conciliate the great unknown forces governing the world.

-- Fernand Windels, The Lascaux Cave Paintings

Summoned spirits, primitive homunculi, lonely dolls: creatures emerged, still smoking around the edges, from the alchemical furnace of an imagination stoked with the earthy rites and ritual artifacts of innumerable cultures; beings which appear, charged with their own magical presence, on eighteen works by French 'Outsider Artist' Michel Nedjar at Judy A. Saslow Gallery. This art is a combination of the primitive-sacred and the archetypal; of compelling power, and visual pleasure. It is well worth seeing.

Michel Nedjar: Retrospective consists of eighteen works on paper from a larger, 250-piece retrospective show held in 2001 at Halle Saint Pierre in Paris. It has been said (in reference to the artist's collection of magical and fetish dolls) that they reveal "the inner 'logic' of magic". Such a quality is expressed in his art, and distinctly comes through in this showing. Nearly all the works reflect some kind of magic, of intermediation between the seen and unseen: whether in primitive forms, images that recall Jungian archetypes, or toylike forms with deeper meaning. The large scale of most of the works adds to their power and presence. Subtitles indicate the region of Paris in which Nedjar was living at the time he created each piece; beyond that, the works are untitled. Here, in the face of 'primitive' iconography, this works: the viewer has access to full play of imagination and imagined intent. It is, in fact, difficult to think of titles which would not restrict rather than inform.

Allan Weiss, writing for Alea magazine, notes that Nedjar has called some of his works "visages convoques, summoned faces" -- a phrase suggesting an overlay of ideas of spirit visitation, the identity-play invoked in masks, and the unconscious inspiration that brings a particular image to the artist's mind and hand. Visages convoques gather in Untitled (Darius Milhaud) (Gallery No. MN 203) (mixed media on cardboard:55"x39":1993), their multiplied gazes pressing out with the force of an oncoming storm. With a nerveless intensity they stare -- the lit retinal stare of animals caught in the headlights, or the mesmeric power of the headlights themselves. Art historian, James Elkins has noted, of staring, "The stares are hypnotic -- I want to say deafening... When a whole crowd turns around to see us, we are rooted in place." And these eyes are more than merely curious: their unwavering attention sifts and searches. (The lack of a mouth, from which we finalize our perceptions of facial intent, makes this even more so.) Of the three central figures which anchor the composition, the topmost, large, looming or protective, is an immense visage and shoulders that rise up, ghostly, behind the middle figure, solid, medium-sized and with a mummy-like or simply abstract body (crossed with a white 'x'); before this middle figure is a smaller, bodiless face. A black line vaguely suggests a halo on the immense figure; a tawny line clearly and strongly suggests one on the central image; it is tempting to see some kind of Trinity or Blessed Personage in this assembly. To either side float eight stylized faces (ancestors? haunting thoughts? helping spirits?) in a vertical dynamic of totemic stacking; the suggestion of the looming figure's 'shoulders' through two of them hints at their ghost-like transparency. The composition, and the directness of the gazes, recalls Byzantine icons, a mingling of emotional intensity as well as remoteness; yet in the use of tan-on-black, and the smoky blue of the background, there is also a sense of postapocalyptic nightmare, of radiation's fluorescence lighting something uncanny from the darkness. This is a work of exposed divinity: whether superhuman, or of once-humans, remains to be seen. And who, or what, has summoned them to the here-and-now? Their placement is that of protective menace, an aggression which might be directed at the viewer, but good to have on one's own side. There is no movement, yet the frame fills with a sense of incomplete action, an imminent next step, whether to strike, haunt, prophesy... but surely not vanish: they are too present for that.

A different visage comes forward in Untitled (Belleville) (MN 213) (mixed media on paper:32"x24-1/2":Undated). The round drum of a face, circle-eyes, an extended triangle 'nose' -- but no mouth -- create a bodiless countenance that could easily be a mask or spirit. Irregular lines drop from the lower portion of the face, reminiscent of a fur or seaweed adornment for a sacrificial drum, or ceremonial garb. Nedjar's outlines are often more than they seem, and here the black of a dry brush dragged across the textured grey-white ground is, on closer notice, enlivened and given texture with flecks of orange and red. The background itself is richly tactile, an off-white birchbark beneath which can be discerned the print of a French newspaper. The empty eyes hold a presence-without-a-presence: this mask-face waits passively for animation, yet vibrates with some inhabiting force that will move the wearer; that moves the viewer, just by looking, to the inner reflection that being seen by such an object brings. As well as its primitive influences, the circular, empty eye sockets bring to mind some of the drawings of Paul Klee (Burden 1939; Knaueros, Former Kettledrummer 1940), where the effect is similarly both whimsical and disquieting.

Untitled (Darius Milhaud) (MN 219) (mixed media on paper:35"x27":1998), presents a puzzle-like mingling of face and birds: primitive imagery, yet with significant graphic punch. In this painting the facial image, executed in thick black lines with infill of the birchbark white -- a skull? -- serves as foil for the figures of two facing birds: from their morphology, possibly crows or ravens, avian species with significant mythological power and content. Below, the mouth of the figure is formed of another, smaller face. Nedjar has created a work strong in symmetrical balance around its central, vertical axis, yet with a dynamic line that leads the eye through and through again the duality of its image. The twin circles are either the heads of the birds, or the eyes of the 'skull,' and like the visual dilemma of the 'faces or vase,' the eye must hop between the two, unable to see both. In his book The Way of the Animal Powers, Joseph Campbell notes:

Birds... are, in later, shamanistic contexts, the normal vehicles of wizard-flights in ecstasy, whether to the underworld, to the heavens, or to those realms beyond the horizon from which shamanic powers derive.

To couple such images -- birds, skull -- makes this work suggestive of shamanic transformation, of the faces-within-faces of totems of the Inuit and the tribes of the Pacific Northwest; equally suggestive of the forms and resonances of Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. It is a complex and intriguing icon, but at its most basic, a strong visual pleasure.

Two other 'face' works in this show display an earlier, alternative style of the artist. Untitled (Belleville) (MN 216) (mixed media on wall paper:32"x33":1987) presents a lively pattern of 3"x4" faces in bright primary colors, interspersed with black-and-white magpies in a mingling that recalls the visual rebuses of M.C. Escher. An even earlier, cartoon-like fantasy of faces and figures is seen in Untitled (Belleville) (MN 220) (pastel and graphite:27"x33":1986), where the loops and whorls of the black line drawing are enlivened with vibrant yellow and red in depicting a busy crowd of grotesques.

Faces are not the only things which may be "summoned." Figures may, as well: figures which seem to walk forth from darkness, from grey cloud, from a wall of flame. Art historian, Sister Wendy Beckett might be referring directly to this artist's work when she speaks of artifacts,

objects whose ancient, quasi-neolithic forms are reduced to the barest abstraction, but still retain the magical power of the fetish. Here we have a weird forerunner of the abstract are of our own century, where the human body is seen in geometrical terms with an immense raw power, contained and controlled by linear force.

Nedjar's elemental figures, squat, rough-hewn, broad, recall Paleolithic forms. They appear from featureless dream-space backgrounds, as archetypal figures. They are faceless. Faces denote individuals, facelessness denies that individuality; thus one's gaze slips off the unavailable reference and takes in, instead, the solidity of the figure, the meaning in its colors, the attribute it clutches or offers. In Untitled (Belleville) (MN 202) (mixed media on cardboard:50"x38":1990), the figure burns, its marled black-red dominating the width of the frame against a background of neutral white-tan. Within the confines of its shape, so dark as to seem a hot void, floats a horizontal, smaller figure in mingled white and red -- an infant, or perhaps, similar to the medieval usage of hieratic scale (in which smaller size represents not the idea of 'smallness' but rather, lesser status), a diminutive representation of 'self'. It is a dark and rooty vision; the black-red figure in particular has an air of alchemical heat, of menace; yet the horizontal white figure remains unconsumed.

Untitled (Darius Milhaud) (MN 209) (mixed media on cardboard:55"x39":1994) flares with more suggestions of flame and heat: here, a red background glows with an inner luminosity, the glow of long-sustained and intense heat, of alchemical transition. Against this sheet of flame the broad, elemental human is charcoal black, again suggesting a void -- this time, a cooler, more inert and featureless limbo. The figure clasps the placid shape of a young goat, and the goat too is the luminous red of hot coals: as if the voided figure were bringing it forth, making it manifest, into the living red heat of the world.

In Untitled (Darius Milhaud) (MN 200) (oil stick on cardboard: 47-1/4"x31-1/2":1994) (which also appears on the gallery card for this show), the human shape is a textured, white-dappled tan (almost metallic, bronzed), emerging from a background of velvety black. The figure crosses crudely-drawn hands across its breast, covering or indicating the heart region, which is blurred -- some entity vibrating so fast we cannot see? -- and the colors, muted (but not as muted as in Untitled (Belleville) (MN 207), below), are indefinably sad. It is a work symbolic of some inner state or truth, rather than a portrait of a person, real or imagined.

A rich balance of color, theme and texture is found in Untitled (Belleville) (MN 208) (mixed media on brown paper:55"x36":1992): it is a primal icon, and a superb visual delight. The broad elemental figure, hands on chest, is a dense brickish-red; the textured tawny-white of the background seems that of limestone; and in white-blue, the asymmetric outline of a goat floats over the composition, head to the top left. The outlines, the earth-tone palette, the spatial disorientation of man and goat: this is Lascaux, Altamira, the dozens of deep temples where bulls and ponies -- and sometimes, images of man -- held ghostly sway in ancient pigments of ochre and charcoal bound with animal fat. Here, the work seems to probe the depths of spiritual causality. Joseph Campbell notes "the principle of man's acquisition of medicine power through identification with the energies that certain animals command," and whereas the red goat in Untitled (Darius Milhaud) (MN 209) seems a thing becoming manifest, here the cave-painting quality and theme show a quest for sympathetic magic, a desired union of the spirits of man and beast.

What is a doll?
It is something strange.
It is something in the shadows.
Is it something of the earth.
It is something of the origin.
It is something magical...

Michel Nedjar, What is a doll? (excerpt)

Our Western culture finds dolls whimsical, playthings; mass-produced, casually purchased, and given to our children to pass the time. Other cultures have found the human image, the homunculus, of greater seriousness: the ritual or magical doll, of which the 'voodoo doll' is an easy, if perhaps overpopularized, example: a doll with "a magical function, the character represented losing its status of toy to take that of talisman or fetish" (from the Halle Saint Pierre biography of Michel Nedjar, http://www.hallesaintpierre.org/expos/nedjarfr.html). This artist has traveled extensively, and in addition to experience with the rituals and beliefs of many cultures, has amassed a personal collection of such magical dolls, including (as noted in Alan Weiss's essay for the catalogue of the artist's 1993 showing at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art):

ones from Peru that accompanied mummies in tombs, Tunisian marriage dolls, Cheyenne divinity dolls, an Algerian doll believed to be magically charged because it is completely worn out, examples from Mali, Mexico, Egypt, India...

Two works in this show bear images whose contradictions seem to reflect in part this mingling of ideas about dolls: with the whimsy of toys, yet charged with power. (As a note, the artist's ouevre also includes a number of self-created dolls or poupees, not included in this showing, which reflect ideas of "ritual disfiguration" and alchemical decay.)

In Untitled (Belleville) (MN 207) (mixed media on paper:50-1/2"x37":1989) tawny-grey lines delineate an animal (Nedjar has illustrated this beast in other works; it appears to be a dog) which peers around a slender, swaying doll-like figure: from the apparent flowing 'hair' and size relationship with the animal, possibly a little girl. The doll-like figure, whose gaze engages the viewer, stands pressed close to the animal (imaginary friend, companion animal, spirit-protector...familiar?), her body an enervated, swaying stalk, her half of the background a muted grey-tan. The animal's attention fixes both the viewer and the distance, its own portion of the background a smoldering reddish ochre. As the animal's body is not visible, it could just as well be a spirit; or could be an animal mask, held in the right hand by the swaying figure. The ambiguity here is enticing; but what is sure is that whatever the role of the animal, animal-spirit or animal-mask, or whether the animal is real or imaginary, protector or friend, the doll-like figure's shy solitude remains very real; the blind appeal in the staring eyes reveals a deep loneliness. Yet, the figure does seem to derive strength from the animal presence, and pressed so close, they seem inseparable.

The bright blue and marionette faces in Untitled (Belleville) (MN 222) (mixed media on paper:37-1/2"x47":Undated), illustrated at the beginning of this review, bring an immediate sense of playfulness; this is another work, very visually strong, with layers of perception. Rendered in a vibrant, living line of commingled red, orange and black, with bright blue clothing and white faces, the energetic composition gives a first impression of a family of dolls or puppets in colorful 'ethnic' garb. The eye is led through the four close-pressed figures, then drawn to pull in the horse whose head forms the body of the leftmost figure, and whose hindquarters and tail can be seen supporting the rightmost, child figure. The disjointed puzzle pieces lend a rhythmic delight, as does the visual riddle of the horse (is it 'real'? are they in costume? just how many legs are there?). The lively color plays against the subtly striated brown kraft-like paper of the background with an appeal both visual and tactile. Yet as in Untitled (Belleville) (MN 207) above, the goggle-eyed faces have a wistful stare. Despite the clownishness of their costume and whitened faces, these figures are serious.

Michel Nedjar: Retrospective is a show that fascinates, and one wishes to see more. One can. Though the hanging works (not all eighteen of which have been described here) specifically reflect the 2001 Halle Saint Pierre show, more works by the artist are available at the gallery for viewing upon request. They display a further versatility in Nedjar's artistry, and are delights as well.

We in the enlightened West no longer have any truly sacred spaces wherein the Aristotelian laws of a rational logic in secular space and measured time are suspended and a mystical logic, resembling that of dream, comes into play.

-- Joseph Campbell, The Way of the Animal Powers

Through our diminishment of sacred space we have lost our intermediaries, those which assist us in conciliating seen and unseen, the "great unknown forces" whether they govern the universe, or the psyche. Yet we retain the images and latent knowing of our origins. Campbell notes that:

Neither in body nor in mind do we inhabit the world of those hunting races of the Paleolithic millennia, to whose lives and life ways we nevertheless owe the very forms of our bodies and the structures of our minds. Memories of their animal envoys still must sleep, somehow, within us... they wake, with a sense of recognition, when we enter any one of those great painted caves. Whatever the inward darkness may have been to which the shamans of those caves descended in their trances, the same must lie within ourselves, nightly visited in sleep.

Michel Nedjar's art reminds us of the stillness beneath the chatter of our waking reality; the spirit-powers that linger in the deep and silent places, just as the bulls and ponies of the Lascaux waited unseen for 10,000 years beneath the surface of the earth. This art has power, it moves and fascinates, inexplicably, without long-winded intellectual explanation. For such is the "internal 'logic' of magic." You need not know: you need only stand before the works, and see. An alchemy of primitive forms, skillfully handled by a modern hand, and speaking to the wellsprings of recognition in us all: Michel Nedjar: Retrospective is available for viewing at Judy A. Saslow Gallery from May 3 through June 29, 2002. The gallery's web site is http://www.jsaslowgallery.com.

--Katherine Rook Lieber

Katherine Rook Lieber has edited ArtScope.net's Visual and Performing Arts reviews since 1998. Ms. Lieber is Editor and Associate Producer for ArtScope.net.

Editorial Note: Books mentioned in www.artscope.net reviews are often in print and may be purchased through this site's Amazon.com link. Joseph Campbell is quoted from his Historical Atlas of World Mythology, Vol. I: The Way of the Animal Powers, Part 1: Mythologies of the Primitive Hunters and Gatherers and Part 2: Mythologies of the Great Hunt (Harper & Row:1988). James Elkins is quoted from The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeing (Simon & Schuster:1996). Fernand Windels's The Lascaux Cave Paintings was published in 1949 by Faber & Faber. The works of Paul Klee can be seen in Will Grohmann's Paul Klee (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.). Sister Wendy Beckett's The Story of Painting: The Essential Guide to the History of Western Art (Little, Brown (Canada):1994) is a detailed and well-illustrated reference. The poem "What is a doll?" by Michel Nedjar is from Public, Icons & Idols (© 1997 Public Access). Allan Weiss is quoted from Alea magazine, No. 5, Summer/Fall 1997, and from his introduction to the artist's 1993 show at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art in Iowa. The Halle Saint Pierre web site has a multi-page biography of Nedjar at http://www.hallesaintpierre.org/expos/nedjarfr.html (in French -- try AltaVista's Babelfish for translation: http://babelfish.altavista.com); at http://www.hallesaintpierre.org/expos2001/indexgb.html the English-language page features several of the artist's works.