Claudine is beautiful

in her silence

her restraint

I discover her

without restraint

Like a man.

I think this score is important for a gradual explanation of my work. How it should be understood when I decide to make it impertinent and discreet, thus without any broadcasting, analysis, or available commentary...

It was my intent (since my gallery owner took it upon himself to put me back on the right track) never to appear under my own name, so as to assume the position of an unknown and elusive collector putting together the most ambiguous, the most unlikely and even the most scandalous pieces by the greatest artists of the 20th century. This is the spirit of the Pit Collection.

The aim of this collection is to involve the viewer in a game of paradoxes. The Loevenbruck gallery was located in a neighbourhood of "traditional avant-garde" galleries, so I thought it would be fun to play the neighbourhood gallery game. What was needed was a good gimmick--people don't go out of their way for Robert Tartemolle or Henri Bidochot, they want novelty in art, but safe novelty, which means, paradoxically, already well-known artists!

The Pit Collection is, per se, a play on the various conventions, rules and laws already established in an art which should be transgressive. The title of the exhibition and the notices for the works are in English, making reference to other prestigious collections, all the artists are well-known, the frame-and-notice presentation is the conventional sign of the important piece, only through a keen reading of the content and the notice (which is in fact a painting!) is it possible to perceive something other than a copy, and, besides, how could anyone imagine that a gallery might propose mere copies...

It is possible to read the notices on the exhibition photos, the photos followed by a "v" indicate the pieces sold (normally unavailable, I am still trying to figure out what has become of them, paid for, vanished, I'll be looking for explanations before very long!)

Here's an amusing anecdote: in Paris Art.com there was a short article about my work by Mathilde Villeneuve; clearly, my desire to remain anonymous is somewhat disconcerting, because the journalist trying to find out what lies behind all this finds a certain Patrick Jeannes, who swiftly reverts to anonymity at the end of the article under the name of Pierre Jeannes! What fun!

The dossier of "recent pieces" links up with the first part which involves worlds other than the art world, you are a professional, so it's all pretty clear!

Where am I coming from and what am I doing? Photography, then the Cergy School of Fine Arts, teaching for fifteen years at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, I have fun with next to nothing, drawing Stalin in the premises of the CGT [the CP-affiliated association of French trade unions], painting phoney notices in the Palais du Tokyo, painting, painting, writing, and cooperating in artists' projects, anonymously if possible, but the Internet being what it is...