In Society (En société) 1962

Pierre Alechinsky made this print, En société, probably in the 60s, and it’s a real trip into the guts of process. You can tell Alechinsky was just going for it, letting the litho crayon dance. The black ink, it's not precious, it’s almost violent, smeared with a kind of urgency. And the way it sits on the page, not quite soaking in, but almost fighting with the surface, is something to behold. The ground is a flurry of pastel shades which flicker like an old memory. Look at the bottom-right corner: the black seems to pool and gather. Then, elsewhere the red markings stand out against their backgrounds. It's like these little gestures are tiny rebellions. The feeling I get is akin to seeing a de Kooning, someone like Jorn, or maybe Asger, artists who were all constantly grappling with how to make the unconscious visible, using paint as a language of raw feeling. It's all about keeping the conversation alive.