Alan Vega

[Scroll down for French version / Veuillez trouver ci-dessous la version française]

Laurent Godin is proud to present Cesspool Saints, a new exhibition of artwork by Alan Vega (1938 - 2016).

This exhibit was made possible with the contribution and co-curation of New York musician, producer, and poet Jared Artaud (The Vacant Lots) and the continuous support and trust of Liz Lamere, Alan Vega’s wife and longtime creative collaborator for over three decades.

Cesspool Saints exhibition coincides with the release on May 31, 2024 of Alan Vega’s previously unreleased new album Insurrection, co-produced and mixed by Jared Artaud and Liz Lamere, which will come out on In the Red Records. Artaud and Lamere spearhead the Alan Vega Vault Project, which is responsible for curating, producing, and releasing rare and previously unheard music and material of Alan Vega and Suicide to the public. Cesspool Saints will showcase the iconic Vega Light Sculptures, Boxer series of paintings, Ransom Note collages, Lotto Tickets series, Portrait drawings, paintings and works on paper that have never been shown, which showcase the minimalist and incomparable depth of work by the groundbreaking visual artist.

Alan Vega on his creative process:

“The first time I did a light piece was when I was working on a very big purple painting. There was one light bulb in the room and as I walked around, I noticed how the painting acquired different aspects. I wanted it to be one color so I said, ‘fuck this, man.’ I took the light out of the ceiling and stuck it on the painting. That started me with the whole idea of light because I wanted to control the color, but then I suddenly began to realize just how much light effects a painting. All painting is about light. Without light in the room you wouldn’t see the painting. Painting is actually reflective light. Suddenly, I wanted to control the light. I wanted to control the color, and as I started working with light, I started getting more and more into different colors of light instead of using paint. I started using light bulbs of color that became my paint, you know, and then also because you have to attach a bulb to a socket, it suddenly became a sculpture.”

Alan Vega said to Jared Artaud (New York Times, 2021):

“I’m ending, you’re beginning, and I’m passing the torch down to you.”

On collaborating with Alan Vega, Artaud said:

“I met Alan in the last years of his life and had the honor of working closely with him before his death in 2016. Alan collaborated with The Vacant Lots, and we opened for Suicide at Webster Hall in New York City in 2015, which was the second to last show he ever played. I spent countless hours with Alan in his art studio and I witnessed up close and personal his creative process. I could see that no matter what medium he explored (music, drawing, poetry, painting, sculpture), he always stayed true to his artistic vision. I was one of the last people to see Alan alive, and I made a pact with him that I’m remaining loyal to this day. The mission is simple. To keep his legacy alive.”

“I was walking with Marty Rev downtown one night while looking at the stars, and I saw Vega, the brightest star in one of the most important constellations. Vega is also a type of Chevrolet (...) what an association: Vega the car, Vega the star.”

About meeting Alan Vega, Laurent Godin said: 1980, I was listening over and over Jukebox Baby. Then Suicide: Dream Baby Dream... Frankie Teardrop... 96 Tears ... Those tracks that, on first listening stays engraved deeply and indefinitely in our souls.

Spring 2009. M.A.C. Lyon: Alan Vega, Infinite Mercy – Alan Vega in a museum? I was very curious and impatient... Little information was shared about Alan Vega, the artist, even with the exhibition of Jeffrey Deitch in 2002 and 2017, with the one by PS1 in 2014, the two by Barbara Gladstone in 1983 and 1984 ... and finally by Ivan Karp in the OK Harris Gallery three time shown in between 1971 and 1975. The images traveled less then and sound had the tendency to cover the vision.

Back in Lyon. Splendid hanging, tense, essential, fragile and brutal, radically unique!“... used cheap lights to tell intimate tragedies and represent glorious bodies next to a Eucharist in golden papers. Aren’t Alan Vega’s illuminations a secret link between Flavin and Gonzalez-Torres?” Also essential to the whole work, the amazing monograph published by the Lyon museum, rich in documents and the artist’s rare, sharp and precise words on art, life and his artistic, social and political commitments. Many thanks to Mathieu Copeland & Thierry Raspail!

2010 Autumn. My excitement rose several notches a few weeks later, when the doorman in a large, charmless building a stone’s throw from Wall Street took me upstairs for my first meeting with Alan Vega...

Alan Vega / Wall Street. Not exactly the most obvious association for a man who preferred to protest with the Art Workers Coalition and become intensely involved in the war in Vietnam, before thinking of making a career for himself...

2012 Spring. At the age of 74, he sufferes a stroke.

2012 October. Our first exhibition in Paris: Holy Shit! Alongside a solo show at the FIAC, I’ll always remember Alan, accompanied by Liz Lamere, arriving directly from CDG from New York on our stand at the Grand Palais, standing motionless for 10 long minutes looking at his own drawings, which he was seeing framed for the first time, as if dazzled... A little later I asked him if he would sign a catalogue for a couple of friends, with great difficulty (the consequences of his stroke) he signed and then asked me «Why did I sign that book for those people? - Well you know they just bought two majors sculptures...» He couldn’t believe it! Liz told me a little later that during the whole flight from New York to Paris, he had never stopped questionning her – ‘this trip was pointless’, ‘these works wouldn’t sell, had never really sold, and besides, he didn’t care «I know what I did and why I did it and I don’t give a fuck....» «In the game of who loses and who wins, he was truly unbeatable... keeping together the bonds of flamboyance and drought.»

2016 July 16. Alan died in his sleep in New York.

2018 June, Paris. Universe a new exhibition at the gallery in the form of a tribute where we had the honor of presenting his latest works, the Spirit Paintings and a group of drawings which, as Patrick Javault points out in the exhibition press release,»...trace a strange path towards a return to existentialist painting, Stars appears as the flagship painting of the series, the one that digs into the radiant disappearance of its avatar.» «...A block of tragedy mixed with cheap effect junk. The two together, inseparable’’ - as Zweig wrote back in 1932, the magnificent suicide of the Third Reich, «The process we call life is always ultimately a tension from pole to pole. Art: For without art, the object is just a piece of nature like any other,» Wittgenstein confided to Engelmann.

About one of the most memorable encounters of my life. An exceptional humanity and a magnificent body of work that prove ever more meaningful and necessary at a time when everything is tipped over to the mercantile side.

*****

La Galerie Laurent Godin est heureuse d’annoncer Cesspool Saints, une nouvelle exposition du travail plastique d’Alan Vega (1938 – 2016).

Ce projet est le fruit d’une rencontre avec le musicien, producteur et poète Jared Artaud (The Vacant Lots), co-commissaire de l’exposition et de la confiance continue dont nous témoigne Liz Lamere qui a partagé la vie et le travail créatif d’Alan Vega pendant plus de trois décennies.

L’exposition coïncide également avec le nouvel album Insurrection, co-produit et mixé par Jared Artaud et Liz Lamere, qui sortira le 31 mai 2024 sur In The Red Records. Artaud et Lamere sont à la tête du projet Alan Vega Vault, qui est chargé de conserver, de produire et de diffuser pour la première fois au public de la musique et du matériel rares et inédits d’Alan Vega et de Suicide.

Cette nouvelle exposition présentera les emblématiques «light sculptures» d’Alan Vega, la série de peintures Boxer, les collages Ransom Note, la série Lotto Tickets, les dessins Portrait, ainsi que d’autres peintures et œuvres sur papier jamais exposées auparavant, qui illustrent la profondeur minimaliste et incomparable du travail de l’artiste visuel révolutionnaire Alan Vega..

Alan Vega décrivant l’origine de son processus artistique «La première fois que j’ai fait un travail incluant une lumière c’était quand je travaillais sur une très grande peinture qui jouait sur les nuances de violet. Il n’y avait alors qu’une ampoule dans mon atelier et j’ai remarqué qu’en fonction de la place que j’occupais en marchant autour de ma toile, la peinture prenait différents aspects. Moi, je n’en voulais qu’un. Alors j’ai retiré l’ampoule du plafond et l’ai collée à la peinture. C’est parce que je voulais contrôler la couleur que j’ai commencé ma réflexion sur la lumière. J’ai compris d’un coup à quel point la lumière a un impact sur la peinture. Sans lumière, tu ne peux pas voir

la peinture. La peinture a pour but de refléter la lumière, la couleur n’existe que par la lumière. C’est pourquoi j’ai commencé à travailler sur le contrôle de la lumière. Et petit à petit, je suis passé de la peinture à l’utilisation presque exclusive de la lumière colorée. Les ampoules de couleurs sont devenues ma peinture. Et puisqu’il faut attacher l’ampoule a un socle, je me suis naturellement fait sculpteur. Mon art est une réflexion intérieure, un cheminement spirituel. Dans mon processus créatif, j’essaie juste d’aller au plus profond de moi-même.»

«Je finis, tu commences, et je te passe le flambeau».

—Alan Vega à Jared Artaud (New York Times, 2021)

À propos de sa collaboration avec Alan Vega, Artaud a déclaré:

«J’ai eu l’honneur de rencontrer et de travailler avec Alan Vega quelques années avant son décès. Pour la petite anecdote, nos deux groupes,«Suicide» et« The vacant Lots», se sont retrouvés sur la scène du Webster Hall à New York en 2015, avant dernière apparition en concert d’Alan Vega alors très diminué par son attaque cardiaque. Alan et moi avons passé un nombre incalculable d’heures à parler de la vie, de l’art, de la physique, de la musique, de l’histoire et de la mort. Il m’a fait l’honneur de partager avec moi son processus créatif. Dans son studio, j’ai vu ses textes rédigés à la main, ses peintures, ses dessins, ses collages, ses sculptures, ses cahiers, des objets divers, des assemblages et une myriade d’autres éléments qui composent sa vision et rendent sa création artistique inégalée. Après sa mort, j’ai coproduit un certain nombre des enregistrements non-publiés qu’il avait laissés dans le Vega Vault – une archive extensive de son travail. Directeur créatif de son estate, je me suis donné pour mission de garder son héritage vivant’’.