Artists - Part 69

Jean-Robert Ipoustéguy

Jean-Robert Ipoustéguy (1920-2006) was a French postmodern sculptor.  He often worked shirtless (above).

His works featured human forms, but with some strange additions.  For example, L'homme (Man), 1963, depicts a nude man, but he has three legs.

Man Passing Through Door, 1966, shows a man who is literally penetrating a louvered door as if it weren't there.

And he's nude, as we can see from the rear.

Grand Val de Grâce, 1977, commissioned by the Val de Grâce hospital in Paris, shows a nude man apparently shedding some kind of skin or shell behind him, with other tubular structures that might be arms and legs.

Ecbatane, 1980, is a major work in Berlin that portrays Alexander the Great at the ancient Persian city of Ecbatana.  The giant figure at left is Alexander.  Some interpret the structure in front of Alexander as the city of Ecbatana that Alexander is entering; others interpret it as a catapult that Alexander is using to destroy the city.

The giant figure of Alexander is nude, and he looks robotic.

A tourist took this closeup photo of a part of the Alexander statue that is definitely not robotic.

Under the "city" or catapult are two life-size figures: a bear, representing Berlin, and this statue representing Eckensteher Nante, a famous 19th century Berliner who stood on a street corner to help passers-by and comment on the world around him.  However, this statue actually has the features of the shirtless sculptor Jean-Robert Ipoustéguy.

We end with a statue called Hydrorrhage, 1975, located in a fountain in the Tino Rossi Gardens in Paris.  Hydrorrhage is another strange combination of human and non-human parts.  It features a nude man behind some kind of shield, with tubular things in front, but two of the tubes have fingers sticking out, which is anatomically impossible.  Is this some kind of fusion of man and machine?

Here's a back view of the nude man.

And here's a side view.  On the man's tongue is an egg.  I don't know what that means.  And the man is masturbating.  I know what that means.

Jean-Robert Ipoustéguy died in 2006 at age 86.