Signed with initials and dated 'rd 1985' (lower right), on brown paper.

Provenance:
Private collection, the Netherlands, acquired directly from the artist.

With the lightness of butterflies, bow ties flutter across the paper of this compelling work by René Daniëls, yet ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ was not written by Daniëls, let alone painted by him. Things are never what they seem with Daniëls; every depiction has a double meaning, referring to both reality and art at the same time. As these qualities can never be experienced at the same time, there will always be a separation between them, which Daniëls calls “the membrane”. The separation of art on the one hand and reality on the other, is true for most works of art, but for Daniëls the separation became a constant returning theme in his work. 

His famous bow tie depictions are exemplary of his approach to the dilemma of the disconnection between art and reality. This elegant piece of clothing, associated with the gear of intellectuals and the outfit for festive moments, has become one of the most complicated, but also one of the most celebrated of Daniëls’ motifs. The bow tie can be interpreted as just a piece of cloth, as a spatial motif or, as an exhibition room consisting of two side walls and a back wall seen in schematic perspective. 

When looking closer, the ‘walls’ either have blank spaces where paintings are about to be hanged, or have white coloured picture frame-like shapes or just nothing. But the patches of paint or the left-out spaces might also be just there to accentuate the representation of the bow tie itself. This is what Daniëls’ paintings do to you: feeding you with a sense of ambiguity and a feeling that someone is taking the mickey out of you. By looking we engage in the process of questioning the image and what it represents, and we seem to enrol in an ever-ongoing game of seeing, interpreting and then changing our ideas all over again. Daniëls’ work is about 'the constantly changing meaning of things': Do I see what I see? Is it there or is it not? It reminds of Magritte: “ceci n'est pas une pipe”, which for the French philosopher Michel Foucault was all about questioning the very concept of 'image'. 

After a disillusioned start in the late 1970s under the wings of the Neue Wilden - they were too serious and did not understand Daniëls’ humour – Daniëls’ work was shown at a number of large exhibitions, like the 1981 Westkunst exhibition of Kaspar König in Cologne, the Documenta 7 in Kassel in 1982 and in 1983 at the Metro Pictures gallery in New York.

Although Daniëls’ work seemed to fit in with the revival of expressive, figurative painting, he never felt at home with Neo-Expressionism. 

He was looking for lightness and perspective, or in his own words: for an 'amused handling of reality'. His great inspirators were Duchamp, Magritte, Picabia and Broodthaers, artists of the ironic distance, with a love for language and literature and a sardonic view of the painter's craft.

In 1986 Els Hoek – an expert on his work - wrote in her article “Onvoltooid Verleden Tijd” that Daniëls’ work actually is never finished: "Even though he made it years ago and hasn't touched it since - his work remains open to new meanings." 

Daniëls plays with us, we play with his art: by securing this work you are sure of an everlasting play date. Enjoy!

Literature
René Daniëls : schilderijen en tekeningen 1976-1986, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 1986, passim
René Daniëls : Onvoltooid verleden tijd / Els Hoek, Metropolis M, 7 (1986) 2, pp 12-23
René Daniëls, Institut Néerlandais Parijs, 1994, passim
Het onvoltooide kunstwerk: Het oeuvre van René Daniëls / Paul Depondt, Ons Erfdeel, jrg. 38 (1995), pp. 55-63
René Daniëls, Lauren O’Neill-Butler, Artforum, Summer 2014