Colette (70s)
Images:
1. Living environment - 70's. 2. Street work - 74. 3. Ophelia - 76. 4 Light boxes II. 5. Marat - ps1 - 76. 6. Real Dream - 75.
"Colette is a young artist who has already made a serious contribution to two significant areas of contemporary art: The creation of a total environment and the use of the artist own body as an instument of expression. In her work, these two areas, while they may be analysed separately, are in fact integrated... an achievement worth noting in itself".
Brooklyn Museum 1976
Sarah Faunce
"At once both tabernacles and provocations for participation, Colette's delicate environments invite both distance and access. As she permits us to enter her autobiographical, sanctuaries of illusion, we become participants in her srtful distillations and share Colette's aesthetic-life experiences".
Arts Magazine 1978
Peter Selz
Colette: living environment
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Colette as Living Doll In her living environment 72 - 78 photo ed"Whereas most installations have a very short span, Colette has worked for ten years on her living environment "Transformation". Using silks and satins, mirrors, concealed lighting, and cascading ropes. Colette has converted a nondescript space in New York's Wall st. area into her own mystery theater in which she appears as a " Living Doll." Art in our Times, Published by Harry Abrams 1981Peter Selz "Colette is perhaps the only person who has reached the objective sought by the artists who look for the integration of life and art. She defines both identically as her own living space." Kunsthaus, Zurich 1979Erica Billeter "I have been told that Colette's environment - and it took ten years for it to grow to what it is now - is in danger of disappearing due to the total lack of support from museums and institutions. This would be a real tragedy. It would deprive New York of one of its last poetical spots. I cannot believe that New Yorkers would allow this to happen. I refuse to think that they could be blind to art and deaf to the harmony of love. For love has nested in Colette's apartment. Politi Monogram 1981Arturo Schwartz |
Photo Album
Colette transformations and fragments of living environment in the 70s
rooms / performances
Real Dream, Clocktower
Installation Performance NYC 1975-76, photo edition 30 x 72"(collection of the Museum Ludwig, Cologne 1990 also smaller size edition)
..."Inside a room of her making, even the sence of hearing is affected; all sounds are gentled, and the total effect is one of extrodinary peace and calm...; More than that, in her works she creates images which cause the person experiencing them to think about the biological self, not as an end in itself, but as an integral part of a larger universe. Rather than turning her considerable energies on to self mutilation, self-mutilation, self-deformation, self-exploitation, or any of the other frequently met auto-actions, Colette is exploring the self as a given creature. possessed of both beauty and terror, at once whole and subject to fragmentation and reconstitution, vulnerable as the tenderest actual flesh, fragile as silk and yet strong with the strength of constructive purpose. For her, this self is never isolated, but is always a part of a greater mystery. In her work, she is seeking expression for some of the most serious themes of art".
Sarah Faunce
Brooklyn Museum 1976
In Colette's representations of lying females, more than acceptance and passivity, one finds trust and romantic abandon, Sleeping Beauty waiting to be awaken. In death we discover that beauty overcomes death, as in The Wake Of Madame Recamier (1974). The reclining Colette is a state of reverie. She is "The Beautiful Dreamer" (works from 1978-82). Dreams as another dimension of reality, revelations of the unknown, soothing peace, realization of impossible desires. Or the healing "Yoga Of Dreaming" and the all-encompassing universality of the Dreamtime of Australian Aborigines".
The Essence of Olympia, Night Magazine, April 1997
Gianfranco Mantenga
Photo Album
Colette : Rooms - Constructed photographs
Street Works Series
"Colette's street pieces began around 1970 when she decided to make her mark of code on the sidewalks of Soho, enigmatic messages to be read from above. She performed these ritualistic actions in a harlequin costume and had them photographed and documented on film. These mysterious traces were soon followed by anatomical drawings: Colette painted large schematic diagrams in broken outlines of lips, ears, eyes, noses, or hearts on the surface of the street."
The Coloratura of Colette, Arts Magazine 1978
Peter Selz
(works on the right included in It-Reappears Exhibition )
Your Title Goes Here
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"It re-appears" Eugenia Cucalon Gallery NYC 1977. Installation view.The theme of the exhibition was the re-appearance of Colette's symbols in her artworks and street performances. It included an opening street performance "Femme fatale". And Hommage to other artists in the form of light boxes . The street installation could be viewed from the windows of the first floor gallery, as well as by passerby s on E 72nd street. The Magic CodeThe magic code appears first in paintings, drawings and anonymous street messages, traces left in hotel room, visited places, objects. It reappears anywhere and everywhere. A message, a language, a code; a signature and a trademark. T.M. for "Deadly Feminine". Colette |
Photo Album
Exhibition - It re-appears
Photoworks
"Homage a Paul Delvaux" 1974
The Essence of Olympia, Night Magazine, April 1997
Photo Album
Colette: Photoworks
Lightboxes And Other Artworks
Lightbox - Bed series III
Mixed media 1973 photo fabric light, 18 x 26 x 5" 1976
Photo Album
Colette : Lightboxes - Bed series
Bed series I
Bed series I. Lightbox. 10" x 12" x 4". 1973
Photo Album
Bed series I
Postcards of the Story of My life
"Documentation of the documentation of the Story of My Life" in postcard sized with description in handwritten text on the side. These works were arranged chronologically and placed on small fabric covered boxes. One of this small boxes contained a enormous amount of works and often became part of the installations i created.
1972-1977.
Satin Box (part of a series ) containing postcards 'Documenting the Story Of My Life"
72-77
Photo Album
Exhibition - It re-appears
Sand pieces
Sand pieces
"...In 1972 she found herself in Jamaica, inspired yet ill-equipped, and resorted to the only materials that were readily available to her-her-body, the sand, the ocean, some Kool Aid for color, and eye make-up to paint symbols on her body"
Carolle Pomerantz
Photo Album
Exhibition - It re-appears
Sand Women Paintings
"The Sand Women", 4 ft x 8 ft . In the studio (exhibited at Stefonatty Gallery, NYC) 1973
Photo Album
Exhibition - It re-appears
Lightbox Portraits
Lightbox portrait series - Larry Poons.
1971 (36 x 36 inches x 1 ft deep) Canvas: acrylic, fabric, light.
Installation with lightbox-portraits. The Courtyard Gallery, NYC 1972
Photo Album
Colette Lightbox Portraits
Early paintings
'The Reincarnation of Nefertiti'
(50" x 76" , acrylic on canvas ) Sonraed Galler, 1971
High priestess.
52" x 80". Acrylic on canvas.
Photo Album
Early Paintings
Earliest Paintings
"In here teenage years in New York, Colette made a series of interesting paintings in which figures were placed against bright colored stripes that could be associated with the kind of academic abstract "color field" painting which was so popular in New York at the time. But Colette's stripes could also be associated with jail cells. Indeed, the people in her paintings always seem to be enclosed, and when, by 1970, the stripes disappear in her work and her paintings became softer and more fluid in character, her figures become confined in the spheres or globes. Closure is an essential part of much of her work. But in order to move out from the inner space of the rooms, she took to the outer space of the street almost simultaneously."
Peter Selz / 1978
Photo Album
Colette : Earliest painting
Most images of public and private performances are available in photo edition or as altered photographs.
Contact Maison Lumiere for more information.