Roland MICHENET (1945-1974) - Lot 125

Roland MICHENET (1945-1974) Untitled, circa 1968 Photomontage silver print enhanced with ink and gouache, mounted on canvas and mounted on an American stretcher, unsigned. 46 x 58 cm PROVENANCE: Daniel Cordier collection, Paris. Roland MICHENET (1945-1974), born in Paris on June 17, 1945, trained at the École des arts décoratifs and the École des métiers d'arts, where he learned stained glass. In 1967, he exhibited at the Karl Flinker gallery in Paris, and in 1968 at the Maeght Foundation in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. His work was also shown in New York in 1969 at the Cordier-Ekström Gallery, as Daniel Cordier was fascinated by this dazzling creator, involved in a totally renewed search for expression in terms of techniques, supports and formats. Prematurely deceased in 1974 at the age of 29, this meteor of pop-culture remains little-known (only a handful of works are included in the Daniel Cordier Donations). Nevertheless, his work remains fundamental to the pivotal period between the late 1960s and early 1970s, making him the French Pop artist in terms of both technique and subject matter, tackling head-on the concerns of his time, from sexuality to drugs and violence. His compositions, complex assemblages borrowing from the framework of photography, the points of view of cinema and the ancestral technique of stained glass, confer on the viewer the status of voyeur, and make him an eloquently relevant contemporary image-maker.