Fred Kleinberg no longer shows his self-portraits on paper, frontal, angry and mysterious, drawn about ten years ago in Rome; neither does Fred Kleinberg show his barely human and largely overlooked figures, painted in recent years in Moscow or Pondicherry, painted in recent years in Moscow or Pondicherry.

Today, in Paris, he is doing a new series. And as always, the result is shocking and politically incorrect. Author of songs in the 1980s, before embracing painting, here is the artist caught up in his first love: he paints rock stars. “Chosen for their fidelity to their beliefs,” he says, for their “irrecoverable” nature, these soundheads are called Iggy Pop, Joe Strummer, Patty Smith, Johnny Cash or Nick Cave. So many monsters, so many myths!

Thick material, strident tones, acid contrasts, quirky frames, very close-ups and huge formats: the attitudes are fixed, the atmosphere electric, the insolence of the looks essential. Each subject is shown at rest, between two concerts, in an empty space: worried but inhabited; in peace but in a state of wakefulness. “Giving way to their humanity” is the project. To make the permanence of legitimate rage triumph, the power of too rare vigilance, the danger of any lucid existence, such is the reality.

“Detach yourself from the image and make way for the energy of the painting.” Archival photographs are the starting point for the canvases. The shots give way to the painter's inspiration: visions explored by the brush, and intuitions enhanced by color.

“So what to do with rock icons that have become painted humanities? asks art critic Joëlle Péhaut, who continues: “The real violence is there. As if, thus decontextualized, these icons were universal in scope. Like when you mute the volume on the 8 p.m. newspaper and it's suddenly no longer news. These canvases tell us about something else. Lives that are possible, dangerous, tasty, exemplary and respectful of life. Lives of artists. Those that sometimes cause death without the intention of causing it.”

‍
Françoise Monnin, 2008.‍

Art historian, journalist and author of monographs on contemporary artists, editor-in-chief of the magazine Artension.