"Bury's kinetic objects are distinguished by a presence imbued with an almost playful lightness. The mere fact that something - on the surface or inside - is in motion is enough to draw attention to them. There is an element here by which animated sculpture exceeds painting."
- Rosemarie E. Pahlke
Pol Bury (1922-2005)
Ponctuation lumineuse, 1960
Estimate: 30000 / 40000 €
On Thursday, June 1, 2023, PIASA is holding an auction dedicated to the works of Pol Bury.
An essential artist of the kinetic movement, he is above all a visionary who, as early as 1953, produced the first moving shots. This movement would not only become the central theme of his work, but most of all its driving principle. Whether contemplative, slow, fast, nuanced, or subtle, movement symbolizes life. Indeed, existence is to go outside oneself, to constantly leave one's ideas to renew them and create. Pol Bury will never cease to apply this discipline in order to deform, modify, move, inscribing himself in a directive and dialectic temporality. Even the frozen volumes, sculptures made at different times of his life, of which you will find different models in the sale, are like a freeze frame of a movement that unfolds. Pol Bury forces us, through his art, to fight statism in order to think and see the vital momentum. Noise and sound will gradually accompany the movement of the sculptures, thus combining vision and hearing. He thus asks us to hear, to listen, and to integrate in order to understand his work. Even by playing with an extreme slowness, Pol Bury puts us in a position of waiting to avoid any contemplation which would be by definition a stop and thus a form of intellectual or spiritual death. Indeed, waiting, to take up a principle dear to Samuel Becket, is in itself a movement. One cannot be satisfied with one's condition in waiting, so one seeks. Whether one is waiting for something or nothing, this state defies immobility to finally give way to hope. Downward or upward movement, one aspires to an elsewhere, not in the avoidance, but in the repair of the world, in its improvement.
Pol Bury (1922-2005)
Volume figé D6, circa 1993
Estimate: 2000 / 3000 €
He will "Pol Buryify" the world in the sense that all the major works of art history will be distorted by the artist. From Ingres to Mondrian through the masters of the Renaissance, everything will pass through the hands of the master. Ingres, who embodies the fixed aestheticism, will be seen and reviewed by Pol Bury distorting in all directions the masterpieces of the artist. But in the end, what does he do if not to integrate movement in the one that represents the sublimated statism?
If fountains have been one of the main themes of the artist since 1976, we are not surprised that water comes to integrate the movement of sculptures. It is the natural and essential element to life and its renewal.
You will have the chance to acquire in the sale the sculptures - original models of fountains made by Pol Bury. Each of them is a world in itself, in the articulation of the movement inspired by water. Pol Bury invites us to broaden our vision through his creations and forces us to examine any movement, however imperceptible.
Pol Bury (1922-2005)
Sculpture hydraulique
Estimate: 3000 / 5000 €
Before these works you will certainly say to yourself (which was my case):
"Did it move? Yes, no, I don't know anymore; ah yes, look it's moving! Oh no, did it stop? But no, it starts again! Incredible!"
Indeed it is incredible because when it moves, we witness a form of miracle that of a life, the life of a work that is offered to us. To acquire a sculpture or a painting by Pol Bury is to have the luxury of finally possessing a potential for life, reminding us that to be in movement is to propose something new and to refuse to be locked into the conformism of one's own thinking. It is in this that we can thank Pol Bury for his vision and his lucidity.
We thank Mr Patrick Derom for his work on Pol Bury's work. All the works presented in this sale are registered in the online catalog raisonné of the artist made by Mr Patrick Derom.
