The book Bernard Aubertin, Pictorial Situation of Red, is dedicated to an essential representative of the revolution brought about by experimental art at the end of the fifties. In cooperation with other eminent artists like Armando, Bury, Castellani, Dada Maino, De Vries, Dorazio, Fontana, Goepfert, Haacke, Henderikse, Hoolweck, Kusama, Lo Savio, Mack, Manzoni, Mathieu, Mavignier, Megert, Peeters, PIene, Pohl, Schoonhoven, Uecker, Verheyen, Klein, he brought about a radical change and pragmatically affected the world of contemporary art.
Red in Aubertin represents the whole history, and becomes the instrument of a never-ending quest for truth and reality as perceived in itself, the manifest of a painting technique which reveals a further level of senses.
Through the elevation of the pictorial essence and the condensation of the rules of space, which is the result of an only colour, he evokes the myth of Prometheus steeling the fire to light up the darkness of the spirit. Aubertin practices the art of reality and being far from the universe of violence released by red and by its psychological strength, he analyses the motion and the light implicit in it as well as the empty space full of emotions it generates, where anyone can find unconscious, subconscious and magnetic fluids.
Fire on the one hand, that converts an object into another object and indefinitely replicates the flow of vital energy whose secret and power it received from nature, like in the tribal rites, and serial composition on the other hand, that develops a course as an intimately unitary act, beyond any chronology and modal variation, being theoretically limitless by definition, testify Aubertin’s preference for sensoriality and spirituality that neutralize the arrogance of the artist.
Aubertin’s work is extremely modern and it reflects the chaotic aspect of contemporary society whereby it intertwines the tragedy of the human being with art. Red as blood, red as fire, red as a blazing substance that, if pierced and modelled, does not generate any fear, creating shining beauty instead. Taming the flame and using it like a paintbrush, he creates extra-sensorial landscapes, lighting up and cooling down the substance until it turns into solution and warning at the same time hinting a chance to recover and overcome the narrow-mindedness of human condition.
