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Andr\u00e9 Stas (1949-2023)<\/span><\/p>\n Andr\u00e9 Stas. Laughing at everything, resolutely! <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n A prolific collagist, Stas deals with all kinds of subjects, be they political, literary, erotic, dreamlike or artistic. He masters the art of unearthing old illustrations, accumulating advertising leaflets, popular or serious daily newspapers, fashion or pornographic magazines. His art of collage displays a remarkable meticulousness and sense of composition, integrating streams of words and puns. Stas's humor is generally black, with derision and subversion his watchwords. It emanates a bitter-sweet irony, to which his perpetual smirk testified that it was indeed a genuine principle of life. <\/span><\/p>\n In his collages, Andr\u00e9 Stas likes to use the serial approach, that of oversized brains teeming with a thousand elements, the \"I like\" or \"I don't like\" approach. Drawing on a wide range of artistic and cultural sources, Stas has also revisited the Buddhist and Hindu art of the mandala. <\/span>Ars Longa Vita Brevis Mandala<\/span><\/i> and this <\/span>Mandala du D\u00e9cervelage<\/span><\/i> from the collections of the Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Li\u00e8ge (a reference to the \"Chanson du D\u00e9cervelage\" by Alfred Jarry, creator of P\u00e8re Ubu and initiator of 'Pataphysique, \"the science of imaginary solutions\"). Circles, grouped around a square, made up of various motifs arranged side by side, form a kind of kaleidoscope that the viewer has fun breaking down to discover each element.<\/span><\/p>\n Stas also enjoys revisiting the great masters, triturating and diverting. In the collage <\/span>How many times and with whom?<\/span><\/i>Greco's portrait of Cardinal Fernando de Guevara is reworked in Francis Bacon's style, replacing the face with sexual penetration. The work is also part of a series entitled <\/span>Dickheads<\/span><\/i>. Vulgarity, even obscenity, does not displease the humorist.<\/span><\/p>\n Andr\u00e9 Stas' collages are internationally renowned, but he is also the author of several collections of aphorisms. A writer, poet, visual artist and illustrator, his work <\/span>Between the pears and the false magi <\/span><\/i>received the Grand Prix de l'humour noir Xavier-Forneret in 2009. After studying Romance philology at the University of Li\u00e8ge, which he completed with a dissertation on the aphorism, Stas gave up teaching in the late 70s, preferring counter-culture. Andr\u00e9 Blavier (editor of Ren\u00e9 Magritte's \u00c9crits complets, author of the encyclopedia Les fous litt\u00e9raires, and friend of Raymond Queneau) steered him towards the Coll\u00e8ge de 'Pataphysique, where, in the spirit of this society dedicated to Jarry, he was later granted the title of \"Regent of the Chaire Fondamentale de Travaux Pratiques d'Ali\u00e9nation Mentale\". <\/span><\/p>\n His first exhibition took place in Li\u00e8ge in 1970, at the Yellow gallery. He soon rubbed shoulders with the still-active members of surrealism in Belgium, including Louis Scutenaire, Ir\u00e8ne Hamoir, Marcel Mari\u00ebn, Tom Gutt and Claudine Jamagne, and contributed to the group's various publications. In Li\u00e8ge in the 1970s, he and Michel Antaki co-founded the Cirque Divers, a hotbed of Li\u00e8ge irreverence, and programmed exhibitions with painter Jean-Pierre Ransonnet. He would later become one of the artist-animators of Cr\u00e9ahm\/MadMus\u00e9e. His encounter with the work of Georges Perec was to prove decisive, and as an artist and writer, he multiplied his collaborations with Arrabal, Roland Topor, Jacques Charlier, No\u00ebl Godin, Jean-Pierre Verheggen, Glen Baxter and many others. Shortly before his death, he published a collection of aphorisms at La Pierre d'Alun, illustrated by Benjamin Monti. <\/span><\/p>\n