L'Art des "Cent titres" by Yves KRIEF

For many years now, the galleries that exhibit my work have been clamoring to publish an art book that would showcase the quintessence of my compositions. Mastering the computer tools necessary for its realization, its feasibility was not a problem for me. However, in spite of all my good will, this project could not see the light of day and I had to admit my incapacity to tackle it. Trained in psychoanalysis, a profession I was preparing for before my passion for art took over, I knew that such a blockage was not insignificant. Instinctively, I resisted. It was a sign that I had to grasp the meaning of, because without it, the realization of this project would have very little chance of succeeding. After the first years of euphoria, when the simple pleasure of painting and exhibiting fed my soul and, I must admit, my ego, I became aware that a very limited number of people perceived the existence of my artistic approach or were even interested in it. Worse and in spite of common sense, the bases on which my success was based had no perceptible link with it and yet, it was indeed the latter which held the keys. Absolutely everything in my compositions underlined its presence and submitted to it. Although at first sight it can surprise, my art suffered from its advantageous aesthetic. This one, by its omnipresence masked the access to the essential: the bottom. It is a fact, if beauty has the advantage of being self-sufficient, it has an annoying tendency to take all the place. Singularity that most beautiful and intelligent women know, their aesthetic having as main defect to mask more or less strongly their intellectual competences. This is the reason why the realization of my book was long overdue. This last one could not be a banal work dedicated to the shape of my compositions. To do so would have been antinomic with my desire to reveal the essence of my works, their greatest richness: the background. It is necessary to keep in mind that if in my conception of my compositions the container is essential, it is there, only in support of the contents. It is its case... It is after a long period of maturation, the result of many years of frustration, that this project was initiated. The important workload related to its realization, pushed me to extract me from the world and to isolate me during a few years. This was an exciting period of research and discovery that allowed me to formalize and theorize my artistic approach, thus shedding light on its contribution to current art, all in an essay entitled the Art of the "Hundred Titles". In this work, I transmit to you all my knowledge acquired over the years. My various discoveries, deductions, analyses, but also my doubts, my fears and my hopes. But above all, I open your mind to the philosophy that animates this new art trend in the making, so that it can acquire one day, and if possible in my lifetime, the recognition that is due to it. In the first part of this essay, I operate what I call the "auto-psy" (homophone "of autopsy"), of two representative compositions of the Art of the "Hundred titles". In these, I explain the mechanism and deconstruct the functioning of my compositions in their smallest details. This is not a euphemism, because in a "Hundred Titles" all the elements or objects that make up the work have at least a reason to exist and represent, taken individually, the pieces of a much larger puzzle where each one brings its stone to the building in order to sublimate and to be sublimated in the whole. In a "Hundred Titles" work, as in any work of art worthy of the name, the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. The second part is entirely devoted to the theorization of my art, it is the one that is most important to me. In this part, I expose my artistic approach and its philosophy, I lay down the semantic bases, the principles and the specific rules which characterize, frame and collaborate in the realization of a work "One Hundred Titles". It is undoubtedly the most technical part, but also the most relevant and enriching of this work, but it is founding and will offer to my compositions, I hope, their letters of nobility. With the content finally exposed, I was able to devote myself unreservedly to the form. To this end, I have included 163 full-page reproductions of beautiful works and 263 additional close-ups, so that you can appreciate some of the discreet but essential details of my compositions. Before I became an artist, my life, while enjoyable, had little meaning. Like others, without ever thinking of feeding my soul, I hoarded and accumulated. There are those who are lucky enough to meet their soul mate and live a great love, I met art. A devouring passion that has marginalized me, but continues to feed me and my soul. I do not know the future and have no certainty, yet I have the strange feeling of having accomplished through this work of transmission and truth, my destiny. Whatever happens to me and whatever happens to me, the cause is heard... "Ite, missa est".