1L‘Homme

Jean Ipoustéguy was born in 1920 in Dun-sur-Meuse in France. His artistic career began with drawing, and at the age of 18 he went to Paris, where he took evening classes in the atelier of Robert Lesbounit. He received no other academic training. The artist, who came from humble origins, once said of himself:

”I am a child of the banlieue, and the little education I have I acquired in evening classes and museums” ¹.

It‘s one reason that Ipoustéguy was long ignored – first as an autodidact; secondly because he distanced himself from ”official trends” in contemporary art. He served as a soldier during the Second World War, after which he turned away from painting and devoted himself solely to sculpture around 1949.

In the next years his pieces were displayed at international exhibitions such as the Musée d‘art moderne de la Ville de Paris, the National Gallery in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as well as documenta III (1964) and 6 (1977) in Kassel. Ipoustéguy won numerous awards, including the Bright prize of the 22nd Biennale in Venice (1964) and the ”Grand Prize for Art” from the French Ministry of Culture (1977). He died in 2006 in his home town.

”L‘Homme” was created in 1963 and was Jean Ipoustéguy‘s first life-sized human figure. At documenta III the piece was highly regarded. Up to that point Ipoustéguy had mostly produced abstract pieces, but his work was becoming more figurative. Through the influence of Surrealism, Ipoustéguy‘s pieces increasingly centered around the human form. At one point he said,

”For me: three dimensions are established by fixing three points in space, and this holds for sculpture, which is a spatial object, in contrast to paintings or film. I have always emphasized these three points in my sculpture. (...) You will also find them in my other works (...) When I returned from Greece, I began making figures with three legs, which represent for the holding points that are necessary to stabilize a structure in space. (...) There are also possible metaphysical interpretations (...)” ²

The sculpture first came to Buch on loan with other sculptures by the artist in 1996. Ipoustéguy spent several days in the guest house of the MDC on campus. ”L‘Homme” was obtained in 2000 for the sculpture park thanks to funds from the LOTTO-Stiftung Berlin.

1 www.economie.gouv.fr/patrimoine/jean-robert-ipousteguy, from 23.09.2021

2 www.mdc-berlin.de/de/wissenschaft-und-kunst, from 10.09.2021