Jean-Michel Folon

INTRODUCTION

GERMAN

Where do the ideas come from? This ultimately remains a mystery. Imagination is stronger than we are. But one thing is for sure: they come from the observation of life. We go on the road. Many things come to us. Cities are growing. Sign inundate everything. The arrow was the first invention of man to his defense. Now we have to defend ourselves against the arrows. We are just in the jungle of cities. And the characters grow like trees. Instead of trees. And we suffocate under the arrow that wrap around us like lianas. This is the disease of the cities.
In the Middle Ages a horse enough to get from one point to another. Today it takes more than a million arrows to go from Paris to Brussels. I counted them. And grow they disappear. For me they have become a living thing. As if I had an appointment, go out anyway to see what happens with them. They go out pretty soon and leave the other place. It is interesting to watch this. It recognizes certain civilizations in their hieroglyphics. The arrow will be the sign of the confusion of an era. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if someone one night, would remove all signs of the earth's surface.

Who has influenced me? I can not say that someone has influenced me. For all have influenced me. Everything is influence, I think. We judge everything we encounter. I think it is sufficient to draw a black line on a white paper. In this line, everything is included, what we believed and what we rejected. When I draw a line, I know that James Ensor is in it. He is the first artist that I really loved. After Ensors graphics I was really mad. Because of him, I dropped the architecture. This is normal: Ensor in Belgium was not a precursor to a few regions. Is strange that I detested Magritte at this time. I can remember that I detested »Waiting for Godot«. If I draw a line, I hope that Magritte and Becket are in it. And Lewis Carroll and Buster Keaton. I think they are the fathers of my generation.

But I've learned to look me in the photographs by Cartier-Bresson and the Steinberg's drawings. Please give us the opportunity to read an era. They spend their lives trying to take the inventory of the twentieth century. In my view, you will discover later that they were the two great witnesses. Finally, there were so many things. The trip to Bern hitchhiking to see the works of Klees. And during the same trip, the rock art of the Camonica. Before the four thousand carved into sheer rock drawings in this valley of the Italian Alps, I understood that modern art is a ten thousand years old. And the birth of a city without age in the picture »The whole town«, by Max Ernst, which was created in 1937. A city by the cities and in the towns that I could not forget.

But everything is mixed. Everything's influence One day I said to Steinberg, he was the son of Paul Klee. He said: »No, he's my cousin». Another time, shortly after the death of Andre Breton, he even said, »He was the true Marcel Duchamp«. And Pablo Picasso said: »Braque is my wife«.  Which shows that the art is a big family. All look at all. But apart from the family stories, I believe that an artist is not really influenced by the art. I believe that the only true impact of an artist's life.

Drawing does not rely on a white sheet of paper in his hands and his head wondering what you should do. Drawing is going on the road and look at life. As Resnais was the first time in New York, he got up early every morning and walked around all day. And the day before his departure, he looked at his shoes and found that they were worn out. So he left his shoes in New York and departed. I am you believe that an artist is there, his shoes to run. Supplemented and translated Hans Terwege.