Pierre Alechinsky

The title of the painting, *Cobra de transmission*, plays on a double meaning. On the one hand, it evokes the reptile slithering across the canvas. On the other, it refers to the CoBrA movement, named after the initials of the three capitals: Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. Founded by Christian Dotremont in 1948, this movement—closely associated with Surrealism—paved the way for lyrical abstraction. It championed spontaneity in art and an appreciation of primitive and folk art. It also advocated for the breaking down of barriers between artistic disciplines, notably through the blending of painting and writing. When the movement disbanded in 1951, Pierre Alechinsky remained true to its principles. At the same time, he explored Japanese calligraphy and acrylic painting. Like painters from the Far East, he works standing up, with the canvas laid on the floor. *Cobra de transmission* is dated 1968. The central rectangle is entirely occupied by the colourful coils of a strange reptile, a ‘spontaneous transposition of reality’, as Alechinsky likes to define it. The interplay of curves, in which one might recognise the silhouette of a woman or the wheels of a car, evokes the criss-crossing paths of Central Park, the famous New York park glimpsed from the top of a skyscraper. The frieze below the main motif (predella), a variation on marginal notes, forms the final boundary with a hostile outside world that the artist rejects. Composed of lithographs, it complements and enriches the central narrative through annotations or vignettes, sometimes grotesque, sometimes simply graphic. Alechinsky admits to enjoying working on notarial documents, maps or stained paper, as much out of a fear of the blank page as out of a need to integrate old traces into his own sinuous lines. The colour relationships, as always with this artist, even when he uses garish or aggressive tones, are here completely under control.

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