AfricanColours - Jean Pigozzi Buys Four Artworks of Joseph Bertiers

International Mon 20-06-2011

Jean Pigozzi Buys Four Artworks of Joseph Bertiers – At a Go!
By Osei G Kofi | AfricanColours.com

Kenyan painter-sculptor, Joseph “Bertiers” Mbatia, hit the jackpot at the just-concluded Art Basel, Switzerland. Jean Pigozzi, the pre-eminent collector of African contemporary art bought four Bertiers paintings from FRED, the London dealer who had a booth at Volta 7, one of the satellite shows alongside the Art Basel 42 fair.

IMG_3450-Jean-Pigozzi and 1 of 4 Bertiers he bought at Art Basel

Jean Pigozzi and 1 of 4 Bertiers he bought at Art Basel

“I couldn’t believe my luck when Pigozzi walked in and studiously selected 1-2-3-4 Bertiers - just like that!” a beaming Fred Mann told African Colours.

Bertiers, a modern-day Brueghel, wields his paint and brush like a surgeon wields a scalpel. His palette, in the urban-pop horror vacui style, depicts dreamers, revelers, drunkards, heroes, charlatans, marital discord, perfidious preening politicians and the ignominies they create in their country. But whatever the subject matter may be, side-splitting humour is always the undercurrent that buoys and tows everyone and everything along.

Pigozzi might have been gripped by the mirthful expressionism in the tableaux he acquired. However, what he mightn’t have been aware was that by buying four pieces at a go for his collection he was upending incredible bad luck that had not only threatened to bankrupt the poor artist but might have broken the back of a lesser spirit, leading him to give up painting altogether. African Colours narrated this spate of “bad luck” a while ago. Let’s recap.

In 2006 Bertiers won the Kenya Juried Art Competition at the French Cultural Centre, Nairobi. His prize was a study tour of France and Germany – all expenses paid. Bertiers also won one of the top ten slots at the Dak’art Biennale, which came with a three-month residency in Marseilles. Unfortunately, the Senegalese and European trips were scheduled simultaneously. Bertiers had to make a choice. He opted for Europe, and his first ever air travel.

When his work was finally shipped to him after the Dakar biennale months later nobody bothered to alert him. Thus his award winning painting got stuck at Kenyan Customs, which eventually auctioned it off for a fraction of its value to cover their storage charges. Bertiers didn’t get a cent.

His misfortune hadn’t ended. He’d meanwhile cut his foot badly, was unable to work for months, during which time the Marseilles residency fell through.

Soon after that Bertiers sent some work out to Dar es Salaam, to participate in the East African Biennale. Among the works he sent out which was a winning sculpture that the British High Commissioner in Kenya had spoken for, to buy. But the work, Rich Man Sits on the Pauper, got stuck in Dar es Salaam. “I’ve been waiting three years for that sculpture to get back to me,” Bertiers said recently.

Pigozzi has indeed made Bertiers’ day in Basel!

Posted By: Allan Kapten

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