No. 12 / 20 · Movements, by Gastón Solís
Knees Bent
neo-expressionist New York
Annina Nosei · New York · 1982

Heraclitus declared that no man sits twice in the same seat, for it is not the same seat and he is not the same man. This is false. We return to it every morning and yet every morning it is, somehow, the same. The room is small. It locks from the inside. The visitor enters alone and sits. In this regard it is not unlike the confessional or the throne — architectures that demand of their occupant the same solitude and the same posture: knees bent.
The brushstrokes in the body run vertical, from the top of the canvas to the bottom. Where the descent concludes, a barely visible seat awaits. The Church rejected Caravaggio’s Virgin for the swelling of her bare ankles. The Academy rejected Cézanne for surfaces it judged unfinished. The seat has never rejected anything.
Provenance
The artist’s studio, New York; Annina Nosei Gallery, New York, 1982; acquired from the above by a private collection, New York; thence by descent; sale, Sotheby’s, New York, Contemporary Art Evening Auction, 16 November 2017, lot 32; the present collection, acquired at the above sale.



















