the artist 42 & the school of Nice

the artist 42 and the school of Nice

the artist 42, Sasha Sosno and S.A.S Prince Albert II of Monaco.

the artist 42 with Sasha Sosno.

between artists and the school of Nice

the artist 42 and Sosno (one of the leading artists of the movement) worked together for 15 years. As did Arman to Sosno in the 60’s, Sosno initiated 42 to the School of Nice, pushing him to return to the production of art.

the artist 42... a hereditory artist of the School of Nice movement.

a question of principles.

To paint the picture... Alexandre Sosnovski alias Sosno spent time in his youth with the great Henri Matisse where they both lived in the district of Cimiez in Nice France. Sosno’s own personal art was based upon mearly esthetics like the works of the grand master. In later years Sosno was to meet Arman, then a progressing new wave artist, cofounder of the New Realism mouvement. Arman was to innitiate Sosno to a new concept of art, where the global artistic principle was more important than the work of art itself. Sosno burned his works and was reborn. Arman had thus just innitiated Sosno into ‘The School of Nice’. It was Sosno himself, who was the the first to ponder on the existance of a school of thought that was ‘The School of Nice’. Sosno befriended and worked therein along side the major heavy weights of the School of Nice movement...Arman, Yves Klein, Marcial Raysse, Ben, Cesar etc....and he himself had become a major element of this movement. At this time the school of Nice was a booming commercial succes with most of the major artists having their own ateliers in Manhatton NY, and worked closely with the up and coming artists of the NY art scene such as Andy Warhol.

meeting of minds

2002, Sosno meets the artist 42. Mutually inspired by each others work, the two became inseparable until Sosno’s death 15 years later. Sosno, just as Arman had done to him 40 years before had inturn initiated 42 into the School of Nice. Sosno saw some similiarities between some of 42’s work and his own, notably between 42’s ‘the woman with lampshade’ and Sosno’s ‘tête au carrée’, one of his most famous works. Sosno pushed the artist 42 to spend more time producing art than he did in his professional capacity as art director, designer or photographer that then occupied the majority of his time. Shortly after Sosno’s death, 42 held an exhibition at the Louis Nucera National Library of Nice for a befitting hommage to his friend and artistic sparring partner, just beneath Sosno’s famous ‘Tête au Carrée’ and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary art of Nice.

woman of the lampshade. the artist 42

Tête au Carrée. Sosno

One of the underlying concepts of the School of Nice.

As Arman preached to Sosno, the global artistic principal should take priority over each individual work of art. Arman had chosen the principle of ‘accumulation’ to be his theme. Klein chose the ‘colour blue’, Cesar chose to ‘compact’ things, Ben the written word and Sosno chose ‘obliteration’. This meant that they just had to take ‘any’ element and apply their principle for it to become a work of art in their name. Following his long relationship with Sosno, the artist 42 chose ‘association’ to be his artistic principle for a series of his works. This incurres mainly the use of photographic subjects with objects used in collage to create a sculpture where the objects have a direct association with the subject matter of the image. the artist 42 through his cultural initiatives, produced many happenings in collaboration with other artists of the School of Nice.