Description
THE FIRST KISS
November 2023, Paris
November two thousand twenty-three, exactly twenty years after my arrival in Paris in November two thousand three, twenty years to the day perhaps, I no longer remembered the exact date, November in any case, the autumn in Paris, the cold returning, the days shortening, and me at fifty-eight years old, twenty years during which I had painted perhaps forty paintings, perhaps fifty, I no longer counted exactly, all these paintings piled up in my studio on rue Ricaut, invisible, unsold, unknown, silent testimonies of two decades of faith maintained despite everything, and in November two thousand twenty-three, at that pivotal, symbolic moment, I painted The First Kiss, the first kiss, and this painting was something completely unexpected in my journey, something I had never really dared to paint before — love, tenderness, intimacy, desire, not violence, not war, not oppressive technology, not painful exile, no, just love, simple, human, universal, this first kiss that makes your heart race, that makes your hands tremble, that makes the entire outside world disappear and leaves only two people, two bodies, two souls touching for the first time.
The painting showed two human figures, two young people — a man and a woman — love is universal, the first kiss is universal, what matters is this moment, this suspended instant where two people cross the boundary, where they pass from friendship to love, from distance to contact, from speech to the silence of the kiss — and these two figures leaned toward each other, their faces drawing closer, their lips about to touch or perhaps already touching, one couldn’t know exactly, I had created this ambiguity intentionally, this suspended moment just before or just during the kiss, this moment when everything tips, when nothing will ever be the same after, when innocence perhaps is lost but something else is born, something deeper, more intense, more alive.
And behind these two figures kissing, I had painted a background that was both apocalyptic and magnificent, intense reds, vibrant oranges, brilliant yellows, like a sky on fire, like a burning city, like the end of the world perhaps, or like an extraordinary sunset, or like both at the same time, and this ambiguity was essential to the meaning of the painting: the world could be collapsing, burning, ending, wars could continue, the planet could warm inexorably, technology could imprison us all in digital cages, everything could go wrong, really wrong, catastrophically wrong, but in the middle of all that, in the middle of apocalypse, in the middle of the end of the world, two people could still kiss, could still fall in love, could still live this moment of grace, of beauty, of pure, intense life, that transcended everything else, that made everything else secondary, insignificant even, because ultimately, at the end of everything, what really mattered? wars? technology? professional success? social recognition? or this moment, this first kiss, this simple, direct, deep human connection between two beings who choose each other, who desire each other, who love each other?
November two thousand twenty-three. Fifty-eight years old. And I was painting love for the first time truly, explicitly, without metaphor, without detour, just love, the first kiss, and I wondered why I had never painted it before, why I had spent twenty years painting violence, exile, technology, the death of hopes, suspension in the void, murderous cynicism, the crushing domination of the masters of the past, why I had avoided painting love, as if love were too simple, too banal, too sentimental perhaps to be a subject worthy of my serious, grave, philosophical art, and I realized that was a mistake, that love was not simple, was not banal, was not sentimental in the pejorative sense, that love was perhaps the most important thing, the most essential, the most necessary to paint, especially now, especially after twenty years of exile, twenty years of solitude, twenty years of invisibility, twenty years during which I had seen so much violence, so much cynicism, so much destruction, that it was necessary to affirm that love still existed, that the first kiss was still possible, that two people could still choose each other, touch each other, kiss each other, even in the middle of apocalypse, even when everything burned around them.
And perhaps The First Kiss was also, in a certain way, a metaphorical self-portrait, not a physical self-portrait like Rendez-vous, but an emotional, spiritual self-portrait, because painting this painting after twenty years of exile was like finding something I had lost, or had forgotten, or had buried under layers of pain, disappointment, cynical lucidity, it was rediscovering the ability to believe that beauty still existed, that love was still possible, that life still deserved to be lived, not for success, not for recognition, not for achieving something external, but just for these moments of grace, these moments of human connection, these first kisses that made everything else — invisibility, precariousness, apparent failure — become bearable, acceptable even, because I had lived it, I had known it, I had kissed someone or been kissed by someone, and that moment had been enough to justify everything else, all the pain, all the difficulty, all the absurdity of existence.
The First Kiss. November two thousand twenty-three. The first kiss in the middle of apocalypse. Love despite everything. Beauty despite violence. Life despite death prowling everywhere. Two people kissing while the world burned behind them, and it was beautiful, it was necessary, it was true, it was perhaps the truest thing I had ever painted, truer than all my meditations on violence, on technology, because love was ultimate truth, fundamental reality, what remained when everything else collapsed, what justified that we continue, that we live, that we hope despite everything, despite apocalypse, despite twenty years of invisibility, despite the end of the world perhaps approaching, we kissed anyway, we loved anyway, we lived anyway, and it was enough, it was everything, it was the ultimate victory over despair, over cynicism, over death, the first kiss, the first and all the others, always, despite everything, until the end.
