Gérard Gasiorowski’s first successes date back to his photorealist paintings of the early seventies, but his paintings were often misinterpreted, as his aim was not to show technical virtuosity, but to analyse the possibilities of representation and painting, accompanied by a strong critical attitude. In “L’Approche” (Approach), a series of 22 works painted between 1965 and 1970 (and first exhibited at the Galerie Thelen in Cologne in 1970), the artist explored the illusory nature of painting through the ‘realist’ genre of photography. Painted on the basis of black and white photographs, the pictures proved, among other things, that realistic representation cannot be the sole aim of art; mimesis is particularly appealing to those who are fascinated by the glamorous surface but neither able nor willing to see things in depth. The painting “Moi qui éprouve une peine énorme à me tenir à la hauteur des choses” (Michel Leiris), 1970 is the 17th in the series “Approach”. The painting shows a line of happily smiling, applauding children behind a hedge, seen from the point of view of a celebrant passing by. The original photograph was probably taken during the Cultural Revolution in China, and Gasiorowski may have discovered it at his former workplace, the Delpire publishing house in Paris, which specialised in photography, or even in a daily newspaper. The long, philosophical title, which has no apparent connection with the situation, and the reworking, enlargement and transposition of the original shot into another medium are all devices that disrupt the routine perception and interpretation of the painting, drawing attention to the mechanism of image-making, the artificiality of images and the fact that images often conceal the truth, even though they present themselves as faithful reflections of reality.
Krisztina Szipőcs
