2022
Acrylic, toothbrush, Random Disco Flakes, India ink and pencil on linen canvas
46 × 32 × 5 cm
RT4A2205
Private collection
Courtesy of the artist
Begun during the French elections of 2022, the painting first showed a masked taxi driver waiting at an airport, his phone reading ‘Lutz’. The blue mask, the pink of the screen, the name, which pointed to Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, and the link with Covid became a kind of obsession. But the painting fell short: its sombre tones leaned towards kitsch and missed the two art practices the name called up, Lutz-Kinoy’s and Lutz Bacher’s. Perhaps the political context of the elections and the palette of blue, pink, black and white were to blame.
Adding another kitsch layer, I glued disco flakes from Lutz Bacher’s 2016 edition Random Disco Flakes, made alongside the Magic Mountain exhibition, over the illustration. The flakes gave the clue to the work’s enigma. Their texture on the canvas recalled her series of books with thick kraft-paper covers and embossed titles or images. So the painting was bathed in an earthy, kraft-like colour, and the first of her six books, (Smoke) Gets In Your Eyes (2008), became its guide. The finished work recalls Lutz Bacher and Matthew Lutz-Kinoy far more than the first image did.
