He liked to say, out of modesty and a rejection of Parisian intellectualism, that his hands held his imagination... A few words about the emperor of the New Realists and a look back at the retrospective dedicated to him at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris in 2018.
Let's turn to César.

César Baldaccini: Thumb © Passion Estampes

Of Italian origin, born in Marseille, César Baldaccini was a lively and eccentric southerner, displaying a perplexed expression coupled with a weary gaze during his television appearances. Because César was a media personality, one of those, like Buffet or Dali, whom television tried to make express themselves about their art and concepts: attempting to capture with words what he naturally preferred to express with iron!

It was upon discovering a photograph of a sculpture by Gargallo (avant-garde Spanish sculptor who experimented with metalwork) that César first became interested in iron. However, what prompted him to abandon plaster, clay, or marble were initially financial reasons. Iron (especially found in scrap yards) was one of the most affordable materials.

But soon César realized that through metal, he could invent. Mastery of arc welding led him down an unexplored path. He was no longer just a sculptor; he was THE sculptor of welded irons, the first...

César: Compressed Car © Passion Estampes

César: Woman © Passion Estampes

In this retrospective of 2018 (marking the 20th anniversary of the artist's passing), we had the chance to contemplate all the ways César created.
From the early years where he welded and assembled metal, to the expansions of polyurethane foam in the mid-60s, which began as happenings and concluded on the walls of Beaubourg in free, gigantic forms of immense purity.
Of course, passing through the metal compressions, cardboard, and others, while also returning to the early loves, to female bodies, oscillating between Rodin, the Etruscans, and the pre-Columbians, in a quest that ranges from Art in all its classicism to the constant desire to innovate.

In the midst of the hundred gathered works, César does not appear here as a unique character, a bit extraterrestrial, as he sometimes seemed to be in his lifetime, but more as a link in a long chain of creators who seek, find, and continue seeking to get closer to their own truth, but also to ours.
In the famous thumbs (varied from the forecourt, in various sizes and colors), just like in the multicolored compressions of cars, there is something that speaks about us, our world, what we are, what we love, and what we consume.

"César: Chick © Passion Estampes

César: Golden Form © Passion Estampes

The object, in César's work, is not a mere thing; it is us, in our passions, obsessions, needs, and addictions. And when he cut his polyurethane expansions and offered them to the crowd gathered to witness the pouring and drying of the form, he shared his pleasure in the object that suddenly came to life, signifying, as everyone had seen it born, take shape, assert itself, and then be cut...
Here, in the same way, we witness, between one era and another, between gigantic works and others much smaller, almost secret under their small protective cubes, this (re)birth of César's work.
Because, as we stroll, we become aware of a creative grandeur, but above all, of a poetic closeness between the artist and his time. He explores the modernity of his era and through it, tells us about what is now our past, with astonishing and haunting acuity.

It is no small merit of this exhibition and its setup to materialize the artist in a very tangible way. Moving from one method to another, from one material to another, from sculptures full of holes and bumps to those offering smooth and perfect surfaces, we see César appear as himself: gentle, determined, dreamy, engaging, creative, a storyteller...

© Texts: Natacha PELLETIER for PASSION ESTAMPES
© Photos: Agnès CARA-RIBAS & Natacha PELLETIER for PASSION ESTAMPES

"César: Compression © Passion Estampes