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The cropped, central figure in The Red Pants, 2016, is emblematic of the unique visual language of Louise Bonnet's surreal, distended universe. Featured in the artist’s first solo show at Nino Mier Gallery in Los Angeles in 2016, the intentionally claustrophobic composition centers on the pelvis of a figure whose long, drooping nose swings into view like a fleshy necktie. Sausage-like fingers hold buttercups, pulled together loosely with twined white string, one of the artist’s long-standing motifs. The Red Pants brings together the artist’s signature combination of bodily distortion and a sense of unease.

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\"\" — René Magritte, *La lampe philosophique*, 1936. Private collection. Image: Banque d'Images, ADAGP / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2023 C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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Bonnet’s treatment of the body—particularly her bulbous noses—caused sensation in Los Angeles, where she lived, worked, and exhibited, in the mid-2010s.ⁱThe artist addresses the phallic likeness of her noses head-on: “The figures make some people uncomfortable maybe because the noses look like penises, but I don’t start out thinking I’m going to paint penises. I just like when things go in and out of something.”ⁱⁱ Indeed, The Red Pants, and her oeuvre at large, traverses a wide range of graphic references, from Surrealists like René Magritte, to the late work of Philip Guston; the underground cartoons of R. Crumb, and even medieval European devotional art.

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The hands holding buttercups function as a fig-leaf to the exposed nose above, recalling medieval Christian floral symbolism. The picked flowers and color palette of The Red Pants are reminiscent of the aesthetics of medieval books of hours, particularly those from the Flemish and Netherlandish schools, c. 1500, which featured illustrations of flowers as life-like as those found in contemporary herbals.

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\"\" — Detail, book of hours, c. 1500, Utrecht, the Netherlands. Morgan Library, MS G5 fol. 18v. Image: The Morgan Library & Museum / Art Resource, NY

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More widely, in medieval European art, Christian saints are painted holding attributes, such as flowers, that symbolize the plot of a story from the saint’s life.ⁱⁱⁱ St. Elizabeth of Hungary’s cloak full of roses, for example, reminds the viewer of when the saint miraculously turned bread into roses. Bonnet likes this aspect of medieval European art, explaining how painting from this time is “really in the service of an idea, and it’s trying to tell a story,” just like her own work.^iv In The Red Pants, for instance, the viewer is keenly aware that the content on the canvas is only part of the scene. The drooping nose belongs to some invisible face; the buttercups were picked elsewhere. “I like the idea of viewing the paintings like they’re in the middle of a movie, almost like a still,” Bonnet says. “There’s a story before and after what you’re seeing, but it’s not given away.”^v

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\"\" — Pietro Nelli, St. *Elizabeth of Hungary*, c. 1365. Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht. Image: © Peter Cox / Collection Bonnefanten, on loan Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands

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Beyond art historical referents, the artist cites the influence of a fevered hallucination from her childhood, called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, on her work: “it’s a kind of hallucination where you feel your limbs growing, it feels like they’re becoming these gigantic balloons,” she explains.^vi Oil paint proved the perfect medium to illustrate this dysmorphic experience to the viewer; the palms and fingers of the figure in The Red Pants seem to be growing, as Bonnet’s subtle treatment of oil paint lends a glowing, expanding sheen to the edges of the figure.

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Sensations of anxiety, loneliness, and the generally awkward experience of existing in a human body, play out, too.^vii Bonnet’s highly finished surfaces, and the long U-curves of pants pocket, nose, and crotch, give the work a slickness that’s almost sweaty. “I am interested in the body. In what having a body feels like, or how we try to hide the way it feels… the ornamentation of it…” Bonnet says.^viii But there’s no hiding in The Red Pants; the close, full-frontal composition holds the viewer in its awkwardness, red pants, buttercups, and all.

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Collectors’ Digest

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Bonnet's work is represented in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, among others.
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Recent solo and group exhibitions include Gagosian Gallery, Hong Kong, Louise Bonnet: Onslaught, 2022, and The Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams, 2022.
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ⁱ Michael Slenske, “Louise Bonnet is on the Nose,” Cultured, Apr. 19, 2016, online.

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ⁱⁱLouise Bonnet, quoted ibid.

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ⁱⁱⁱSharon Mizota, “Full-frontal absurdity: The world of Louise Bonnet’s fleshy, surreal portraits,” The Los Angeles Times, May 26, 2016, online.

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^iv Bonnet, quoted in Pac Pobric, “’I Don’t Mind Being Repulsive’: Swiss Painter Louise Bonnet on the Lure of Ugliness and How Horror Films Inspire Her Work,” artnet, Oct. 29, 2020, online.

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^vBonnet, quoted in “Louise Bonnet and Dodie Bellamy,” Gagosian Quarterly, Summer 2022, online.

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^vi Bonnet, quoted in “Louise Bonnet and Dodie Bellamy.”

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^viiMizota.

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^viii Bonnet, quoted in Daniel Milroy Maher, “Louise Bonnet paints exaggerated bodies as symbols of melancholy and loneliness,” It’s Nice That, Apr. 23, 2019, online.

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#2","https://assets.phillips.com/auctions/NY010323/182091_001.jpg",1814,"Felix Gonzalez-Torres","40",{"_417":1503,"_52":420,"_421":1504,"_460":1516,"_462":463,"_466":467,"_468":469,"_470":471,"_472":1517,"_474":253,"_476":1518,"_599":1519,"_478":1520,"_480":1521,"_482":483,"_484":46,"_485":46,"_486":941,"_344":1522,"_489":46,"_490":46,"_491":75,"_492":46,"_493":46,"_494":75,"_495":75,"_418":1081,"_464":1523,"_605":1081},"177892",{"_423":1505,"_433":1506},{"_425":426,"_427":428,"_429":1124,"_431":1018},[1507,1509,1511,1513,1514,1515],{"_425":436,"_427":437,"_429":1127,"_431":1508},793000,{"_425":441,"_427":441,"_429":1300,"_431":1510},892000,{"_425":445,"_427":446,"_429":1130,"_431":1512},907000,{"_425":426,"_427":428,"_429":1124,"_431":1018},{"_425":451,"_427":452,"_429":817,"_431":1031},{"_425":456,"_427":457,"_429":1134,"_431":1034},"https://www.phillips.com/detail/sturtevant/177892","1-7FER0C","Study for Warhol 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BANKSY Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search, 2018

\n","version","1682695973",{"_599":1532,"_528":1533,"_1529":1534},"https://assets.phillips.com/auctions/NY010323/62_hi.jpg","

YAYOI KUSAMA Red Stripes, 1965

\n","1682695984",{"_599":1536,"_528":1537,"_1529":1538},"https://assets.phillips.com/auctions/NY010323/63_hi.jpg","

YAYOI KUSAMA Blue Spots, 1965

\n","1682695996",{"_599":1540,"_528":1541,"_1529":1542},"https://assets.phillips.com/auctions/NY010323/64_hi.jpg","

ED RUSCHA Dixie Red Seville, 1985

\n","1682696011",{"_599":1544,"_528":1545,"_1529":1546},"https://assets.phillips.com/auctions/NY010323/65_hi.jpg","

RASHID JOHNSON Untitled Escape Collage, 2016

\n","1682696027",{"_599":1548,"_528":1549,"_1529":1550},"https://assets.phillips.com/auctions/NY010323/66_hi.jpg","

DAMIEN HIRST Reconciliation, 2018

\n","1682696042",{"_599":1552,"_528":1553,"_1529":1554},"https://assets.phillips.com/auctions/NY010323/67_hi.jpg","

JADÉ FADOJUTIMI The Menstrual Marshland, 2021

\n","1682696055",{"_599":1556,"_528":1557,"_1529":1558},"https://assets.phillips.com/auctions/NY010323/68_hi.jpg","

HELEN FRANKENTHALER On the Road, 1980

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CAROLINE WALKER Conservation, 2010

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SIMONE LEIGH Figure (Cobalt), 2021

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JOAN MIRÓ Femme et oiseau, 1971

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Banksy, Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search, 2018. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale.

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$\"\"$

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Eleanor Nairne. Photo: Eva Herzog.

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About the Writer: Eleanor Nairne is a curator based at the Barbican Art Gallery, where her exhibitions include Imran Qureshi: Where the Shadows are so Deep (2016), Basquiat: Boom for Real (2017-18), Lee Krasner: Living Colour (2019-20), Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty (2021), Soheila Sokhanvari: Rebel Rebel (2022), and Alice Neel: Hot Off The Griddle (2023). She was previously Curator of the Artangel Collection at Tate, organising more than 30 exhibitions and displays across the UK. A regular catalogue contributor for international institutions and publications, she is also a Trustee for Heart Club, an organisation devoted to neurodivergent artists.

\n\n

To apprehend is to grasp, in mind or body. At its root is the seizing of something, prehendere. Since the 16^th century, the word has suggested the intervention of the authorities, and around the same time came a sense of anticipation, a feeling of menace on the horizon.

\n\n

In the early hours of 17^th September 2017, Banksy delved into this murky etymology with the creation of two murals devoted to Jean-Michel Basquiat and the exhibition I co-curated of his work at the Barbican, Boom for Real, which was set to open to the public four days later. Positioned in the concrete bowels of the Barbican Estate, where Golden Lane meets the Beech Street tunnel, this ‘unofficial collaboration’ coaxed onlookers to consider the complex politics at play in the alliterative collision between the Barbican, Basquiat and Banksy.

\n\n

There had been no forewarning and at first, I thought it had to be a hoax; but here, pointed my friend, was the message on the official Instagram account, and there, he kindly gestured, was the work before us. I felt the bite of critique grinding against the institution and the power structures surrounding it, but also against me as Basquiat’s curatorial custodian – a sensation only sharpened by the element of surprise and the artist’s anonymity – tinged with admiration for the clarity of the image and its capacity to provoke debate.

\n\n

The central figure was taken, seized you could say, from Basquiat’s 1982 painting Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump, which did not travel to London in 2017, although it was a highlight of the 1996 exhibition at the Serpentine. In Banksy’s rendition, the rich painterly background of pinks and peppermint green has evaporated, so that the skeletal figure and his dog take on a graphic starkness, with an alarming nimbus of red and orange like a memory of their former life. The work reflects on the formidable power of displacement to reshape a sense of self.

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\n
I feel most colored when thrown against a sharp white background.
\n—Zora Neale Hurston
\n

\n\n

In Basquiat’s original, paint is sprayed and dribbled across the canvas, giving an impression of the joyful release of a sweltering summer day when a Johnnypump (the New York nickname for a fire hydrant, in honour of its nineteenth-century inventor John Giraud) would be illegally opened so neighbourhood children could ‘swim’. Basquiat’s figure may be static, his arms held aloft and oversized fingers splayed, but the edge of his grin has been lifted to give an unmistakable touch of mischief. In Banksy’s mural, the grimace has become as rigid as the grill of an American football helmet, and no wonder, as he is flanked by two officers: a woman with radio and handcuffs on her hip leans down to frisk his right leg, while a man with ‘police’ on the back of his vest jots down notes. The dog looks on in horror.

\n\n

At its most immediate level, Banksy’s work questions what kind of reception Basquiat, or any of the young Black figures he heroized, might have received in 21st-century London, a city that has long abused ‘stop and search’ powers. When the murals were made, Black citizens in the UK were six times more likely to be targeted, and Theresa May as Home Secretary had argued against the police tactic, given that as many as 250,000 searches a year were thought to be illegal. The monosyllabic phrase ‘stop and search’ violently underplays the assault of being apprehended in this way, not to mention the very real threat to life, both literally and in terms of personal sovereignty.

\n\n

\n
They say you appeared out of nowhere. Like magic … They don’t hear you. They don’t see you. They see someone, but that person is not you… You are hollowed out, like it was not just your bag they emptied.
\n—Caleb Azumah Nelson
\n

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This question of seeing and being seen is at the heart of Banksy’s critique. The Barbican is implicated not just in terms of timing and geography, but also in the careful siting of the mural next to a sign pointing towards the ‘Barbican Exhibition Halls’. In the 1970s, the Barbican marketed itself as a Centre for Conferences, Meetings and Exhibitions, which typically meant trade exhibitions of goods or services designed to raise revenue to support the activities of the arts centre; these spaces are no longer in use but the need to drive income is no less urgent. The sign draws attention to how commercial imperatives can easily cloud the vision of any cultural institution – when I pitched to stage a Basquiat exhibition in 2014, was he frisked for his artistic significance or his capacity for box office success?

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Basquiat had already turned his figure inside out, parading his skeleton, so ideas of exposure and extraction are written into rather than onto the work. By 1982, he was an artist facing the dizzying reality of exhibitions in LA, Rome and Zurich, alongside the all too frequent struggle to hail a yellow taxi. Banksy amplifies the vulnerability coursing through that life and work and the bruising reality of how easily his spirit could be crushed in the hands of the institutions and individuals receiving and misperceiving it years down the line.

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For Banksy’s statement to remain, it had to be protected by Plexiglas, only adding to the irony of the work given that most graffiti would be considered to be vandalising the grade-II listed Brutalist architecture and immediately washed away. At least it means it can be enjoyed in perpetuity and for free. And what is it that visitors come to encounter?

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Banksy apprehends something of Basquiat’s complex negotiation of the art world – how he was constantly being interrogated by cultural authorities of one stripe or another, wanting to establish his promise, his place. Yet he found ways to make work that continues to wrest free from their grasp, let alone Banksy’s, or our own. Even within the iconography of the mural, the imitation of Basquiat’s painterly figure carries the life-charge of the image against the monochromatic stencilled police. And it is in part this irreducible brilliance that keeps visitors coming in search of his afterimage in the Beech Street Tunnel.

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Banksy’s Barbican intervention, 2017.

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Discover More from 20th Century & Contemporary Art >

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Recommended Reading

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The World of Rosa and Aaron Esman >

\n\n

Agnes Becht on Kusama >

\n","publishDate","2023-05-04T23:00:00.000000Z","authorCredit","Jesse Limbacher","coverPosX",50,"coverPosY","articleUrl","https://www.phillips.com/article/121583766/seized-basquiat-welcomed-by-the-metropolitan-police-2017","auctionEditorialID",1821,"editorialID",4217,"flocklerID",121583766,{"_1582":1606,"_1584":255,"_1585":1607,"_528":1608,"_1588":1609,"_1590":1610,"_1592":1593,"_1594":1595,"_1596":483,"_1597":1611,"_474":253,"_1599":1612,"_1601":1613,"_1603":1614},"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/lead-ba741a48-ae0e-428e-b4bd-832273807b25_s600x0.jpg","The collector and her son Brendan share their insightful and amusing stories.","Agnes Becht on Kusama","

Agnes and Frits Becht in Venice for the Biennale, 1966.

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Dutch collectors Agnes and Frits Becht were active in the European contemporary art scene from the 1960s to the 1990s. The couple treasured their personal relationships with the artists they collected, including Lucio Fontana, Jan Dibbets, and Yayoi Kusama.

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Their granddaughter, Eline Becht, wrote in the curatorial note to accompany the exhibition, Personal Reflection: Works and Stories from the Agnes and Frits Becht Collection, The Hague, 2022, that the two collectors had “a special approach to collecting, close to patronage, where the collector wishes to financially support the artist while giving them creative freedom and trusting their process.”

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This was especially true of their relationship with Kusama. The Bechts’ financial support opened new professional opportunities for the artist in Europe, beginning with their purchase of Red Stripes and Blue Spots in 1965. The two works have remained in the family collection ever since and have featured in five major Kusama retrospectives, among other exhibitions. As some of Kusama’s earliest soft sculptures, Red Stripes and Blue Spots are immediately recognizable as iconic early works by an international superstar.

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Yayoi Kusama, Red Stripes, 1965. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale New York.

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\n
“Their collection tells the story of what they loved, the adventures they lived, the people they met, and the relationships they built along the way.”
\n
\n—Eline Becht, 2022
\n

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Yayoi Kusama, Blue Spots, 1965. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale New York.

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This acquisition was the beginning of the couple’s relationship with the artist: as a result of the Bechts’ patronage, Internationale Galerij Orez offered Kusama a contract for exclusive representation in Europe. Two years later, the Bechts purchased an entire shipping container of thirty-nine works by Kusama, sight unseen.

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Below, Jean-Paul Engelen — President, Americas and Worldwide Co-Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art at Phillips — sits down with Agnes Becht and her son Brendan — chef and proprietor of Zazà Ramen in Milan, which showcases contemporary art in its dining room — to hear the stories of the family’s life lived with art.

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Red Stripes and Blue Spots are on offer in Phillips’ 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale New York, 17 May 2023.

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Jean-Paul Engelen: Agnes, you and Frits were friends with many artists in the ‘60s. Do you have any favorite memories that you can share of that particular period?

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Agnes Becht: There are so many! (laughs). We also would go to London and Paris for exhibitions and to visit [Tetsumi] Kudo and [Kurihara] Hiroko, so there are a lot of memories. We would see many exhibitions and would travel with Brendan when he was small. But I do not have too many memories about Kusama, only when we saw her at the Birds Club — that is a memory that I must share.

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JPE: You went to the Birds Club, to the Happening?

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AB: Yes. And it was hilarious and very nice — all the naked men standing there who were willing to pay for Kusama to paint them. It was a really nice happening, it was beautiful.

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JPE: Were you all waiting for her to arrive, or was she already painting when you got there?

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AB: Yes, she was already painting. It was very crowded with lots of people there, but it was good to see how she was so kind and so concentrated on painting the men. It was a really special evening.

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Brendan Becht: But were you embarrassed or was it quite normal to see all the naked men, or was it —

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AB: I was really embarrassed!

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(Everyone laughs).

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AB: You can see it in the photograph somebody had taken, I was maybe scared and looking over the shoulder of that man.

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BB: And not looking at their penises.

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AB: No, no, not at all — but there were so many men! It was all so strange. It was not common to do that at the time, but it was wonderful!

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JPE: And there were only men? Or did she paint men and women?

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AB: No, only men.

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Agnes and Frits Becht in the background as Yayoi Kusama paints at the Naked Body Festival, Birds Club, Amsterdam, Nov. 22, 1967.

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JPE: Only men. Interesting. And do you remember seeing the Kusama shows at Orez?

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AB: I can’t remember being there. I had just had Brendan, he was only a year old. Perhaps it was a little bit difficult to have somebody who could take care of him and Frits was already working. At the time, we were living on the boat in Loenen aan de Vecht. So, they [Red Stripes and Blue Spots] were first hung on the boat and then in 1966 we moved to a bigger house.

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JPE: Did Kusama visit your house?

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AB: Yes.

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BB: Absolutely.

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JPE: Agnes, do you remember her visit to the house? Can you tell us about it? Did she come over for dinner or did she just come to see you?

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AB: She was a very nice woman, very lively and quite kind to children also. We had a very good relationship with her. We were very happy with the artwork that we bought from her, and we told her that all the time. She was very kind and helpful.

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Installation view of Red Stripes and Blue Spots in the retrospective exhibition Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, at the Hirschorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC, 2017-2018.

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JPE: So, at that stage, you had Red Stripes and Blue Spots, and Chair?

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BB: Yes, there was the chair and there were the two works that were hanging. And then in 1967 the other works were bought. One was Air Accumulation and one without title. The problem that Kusama had, by 1967, was about the works that were in England. We decided to import these works — late ’67 early ’68 — and they were delivered. And then what happened, Mom?

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AB: Yeah, it was very strange. She was very upset about it. The shipping containers were there for a long time and the gallery owners didn’t want to pay for it. You know, they have to pay the insurance and the duty and so on, and they were thinking that this is not worth it anymore.

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It was a very strange coincidence, we had invited them over for lunch, the two men from the gallery. We were sitting there, and Frits said to one of them, “The container is coming today.” They were shocked and they immediately left! And then after a few hours the container arrived, and we took everything out and it was so beautiful. I think I must have died from it. We spread it out in the garden, on the grass in the summer. And then, Frits made the decision that it was too much to own.

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JP: And then of those works eventually some of them went to Orez or —

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BB: There were about 40 works in that container, many small ones, but some big ones as well. My father had contact with the Thelen Gallery in Essen, Germany. And so, in the summer of 1968, according to my mother, they acquired them. It was quite soon after they arrived. The works were not in our collection for a long time — maybe a few weeks or few months. The gallery people came over to look at the works and they decided to buy the whole lot, the whole container. But everything was displayed outside in the garden.

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JP: Agnes, did you ever have a favorite? Between Blue Spots or Red Stripes? Or you always saw them as one work together?

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AB: Yes, I see them as one work. The differences between them are nice when they’re together.

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Kusama with Red Stripes and Blue Spots, 1965.

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JP: I’ve seen the beautiful photographs of you as a dancer — in all these Happenings, did your dance background influence the way you look at the work of Kusama? Because it has movement, and she was doing all these things with bodies. Do you feel that had some influence?

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AB: I think so. There was also a little bit of choreography, that she was moving her body and she was very sensitive. This is true.

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JP: So I’m wondering, you shared this memory of all the Kusama works out on the grass, and you said they were so beautiful. What was beautiful about them to you?

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AB: When they were all out on the lawn, it was a very beautiful sight to see. They were so tactile, and they were very soft — you wanted to touch them. It felt like they were elements of the landscape.

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BB: I think what is in an interesting point is the fact that, like my mother said, it was a soft sculpture, and that was quite revolutionary at the time.

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AB: Yes.

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BB: My parents also bought another female artist in that period who made soft sculpture. What is interesting now that we are speaking so much about the position of women in the art world, is that both Kusama and this other artist, which is Jann Haworth, made that kind of art in the late ‘60s, but they were not really acknowledged for it. Actually the artist who became famous for big soft sculptures was of course, a male artist — Claes Oldenburg.

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(Everyone agrees).

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BB: And you know, also, concerning Kusama, there was a long period of time when people were not too interested in her. I think that was in the ‘70s and the ‘80s, and then there was a comeback that started in the ‘90s. But I know from her own stories and words that she thought in New York that some of the male artists kind of stole her ideas. So the fact that my mother says here that they were soft and you can touch them, and they were so direct is interesting and —

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AB: And they also had an aspect of eroticism at the same time.

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JP: It’s like the Infinity Room that she made, Phalli’s Field. It almost becomes an infinity garden of objects. Thank you both for sharing.

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Discover More from 20th Century & Contemporary Art >

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Recommended Reading

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The World of Rosa and Aaron Esman >

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Seven Things You Need to Know About Yayoi Kusama >

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Rosa and Aaron Esman at home. Pictured above mantle: Josef Albers, Study for Homage to the Square: Bright, 1962. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session.

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Phillips is pleased to present Property from the Collection of Rosa and Aaron Esman, a collection of over 150 works from their Manhattan residence. Iconic masterworks by Josef Albers, Robert Rauschenberg, and others will be offered in upcoming New York 20th Century & Contemporary Art sales.

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Our series of interviews with the daughters of Rosa and Aaron Esman continues below.

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Discover Previous Installments:

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The World of Rosa and Aaron Esman >

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All for Love of Art >

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Phillips: Which dealers did your parents have the strongest formative relationships with — and at what stages in the life of the collection?

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Susanna: Leo Castelli and Sidney Janis were the most influential and the dealers with whom they had the closest relationship.

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Marjorie: Castelli and Emmerich in the glory days of the ‘60s.

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Abigail: Leo Castelli, without question, who was a very close friend (and had a heart attack in our living room!). Rosa’s first gallery exhibition was a show of drawings she borrowed from Leo. Her Ten From Leo Castelli portfolio was a project she created for him. He and they socialized often. This was from the early years of their marriage, but they were already collecting. Others include Ileana Sonnabend, André Emmerich, and Ivan Karp (when he worked for Leo). Although they were friends with many other dealers, I would say none had the same influence on their collection as these.

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P: Certain key pieces appeared to function in your family home as focal points. Was this planned? Did your parents fall in love with a piece and then find a place for it — or were they actively looking for key crescendo moments?

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S: Obviously they knew which works were most important, but they hung works where they fit and where they thought they looked best and actually didn’t move them around too much.

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M: Absolutely. They fell in love with a piece and found a place for it.

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A: Everything they bought was something they fell in love with and found a place for. Nothing was planned. Nothing was pre-created, the way collections are built now, with checklists of artists and deliberate curation. They saw it, they loved it, they bought it.

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Joan Miró, Femmes devant le soleil (Woman in Front of the Sun), 1942. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session.

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P: How did your father’s career as a psychoanalyst inform his eye? And your mother’s as a fine arts editions publisher and gallerist? Did they ever debate and disagree on what to purchase?

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S: I would say that my father was the real “collector” and that he was the one who was more interested in having the Pre-Columbian works, African works, and even the Outsider works (which of course were directly related to his profession). My mother loved the Russian Constructivist works but they collected together, and agreed on everything they bought. The only things I heard them argue about was whose fault it was that they didn’t buy…

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M: He was largely interested in art forms as an expression of creativity, which was a big interest of his professionally. The creative process was the subject of much of his writing. Her work speaks for itself, she published and represented artists that she valued. I’m not aware of a particular philosophy other than the decision to publish the multiples, which she did, and he supported, in large part because as a young couple with children they couldn’t afford to buy what they wanted. Her goal was to work with artists to create multiple originals that could sell for lower prices for people like themselves.

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A: Our father was particularly fond of Surrealist work, and adored Miró and Max Ernst; in addition, he and our mother together became fascinated with Outsider Art and worked together on a catalogue and an exhibition at the gallery in the 1980s. He also translated the biography of Adolf Wölfli from French to English during his sabbatical in 1988. Dada was also a favorite for both of them.

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I for one am not sure how Rosa’s “eye” would have been informed by her work as a publisher and gallerist. Rather, I would say it was the other way around: her selections were influenced by her “eye” — what she found amusing, what she found intellectually compelling, what she felt mattered. Those choices would have been made by her, but I can’t imagine one instance where he would have disagreed. They had very similar taste and vision.

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If they disagreed on a work, sometimes the one who wanted it would buy it personally rather than them buying it together (which usually meant that our mother paid for it, rather than our father). That didn’t happen often though.

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Dr. Aaron Esman with artist and close friend Arman.

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P: Which pieces received the most attention from visiting friends and family? And what did your parents see as their proudest highlights?

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S: I would say their favorites were probably the Albers, Rauschenberg, and the Miró (which they felt very proud that they acquired when they were young, when they didn’t have much money and my mother was pregnant with me — the oldest) and the Armans because of their close friendship.

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Also, they went to galleries every Saturday (often dragging their kids along) and we were dragged on Sundays to museums. When I became director of the John Weber Gallery, I kept toys on my desk so that kids, who were being dragged to galleries like I had been, had something to play with.

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M: It’s hard to say what received the most attention, and some of those are no longer in the collection, such as the very large Stella painting that hung in the living room for decades before they sold it. They were proud of the Miró, I think, and the Albers. But I don’t know that they were proud of anything more than anything else.

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A: I don’t believe that anything in particular received “the most” attention. As children, we had child friends who were particularly fascinated by certain pieces, but nothing else. The collection itself was their proudest highlight.

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Robert Rauschenberg, Bath, 1964. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale.

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They saw it, they loved it, they bought it.
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\n—Abigail Esman
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P: Were there any museums your parents particularly loved visiting, or private collections they admired?

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S: They loved private museums (the Frick, Barnes, Clark) but the Met was probably their favorite. My mother had worked at MoMA and of course MoMA was a huge influence on them and on everyone who cares about modern art. More recently, because of my close friendship (and subsequently theirs) with the director of the Whitney, that became a favorite as well. They traveled a lot and went to every museum in every city they visited. They loved them all. My mother was very social, so she of course loved seeing collections in people’s homes.

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M: Every museum in every city they ever went to. They loved all of them. He especially liked the small personal collections such as the Frick, the Morgan, the Barnes, the Gardner. But they loved any institution that had art.

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A: MoMA, of course (our mother worked there, for René d’Hanoncourt). The Met. The Guggenheim. The Louvre. When they traveled to Europe, they visited every museum they could. They were not particularly struck by any private collections that I can recall.

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P: How has growing up in an art-focused family impacted you later in life, both personally and professionally?

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S: One year after I graduated from college (with a major in Art History), I got a job at the John Weber Gallery in SoHo, first as a secretary and subsequently as the director. The gallery represented Sol LeWitt and Robert Mangold (among others) and four years later, I left the gallery to work with them privately. I managed their archives, set the prices, edited the catalogues (including the catalogues raisonnés), helped curate their shows and sent the LeWitt crews around the world installing the Wall Drawings. I worked in that capacity with Sol from 1980 until his death in 2007, and still work with Bob, mainly in an archival capacity.

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I go to galleries and museums at least once a week and am still very involved in the art world, so my parents’ interest in art had a huge impact on my life.

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M: Of the three of us I am the one who has not had an art-focused career. But growing up in an art-focused family certainly gave me not just an appreciation for art but also a sense of the importance and value of art in general. This applies to other art forms besides visual arts, particularly music.

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A: I became an art writer because I believed, from my earliest years, that understanding art had a direct connection to empathy (little did I know that research decades later would prove this to be true!) and could replace religion in the way that it can shape psychology; and for a practical reason, because it was what I knew. Later, I became a private art dealer, working often with my mother but not only. That said, as a child, I wanted to be one of two things when I grew up: a writer or a psychologist, echoing my father.

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Discover More from 20th Century & Contemporary Art >

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Recommended Reading

\n\n

The World of Rosa and Aaron Esman >

\n\n

Agnes Becht on Kusama >

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Louise Bonnet

The Red Pants

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Louise Bonnet