In 1972, Andy Warhol teamed up with Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the duo shook the art world with their strange and beautiful collaborative pop-art paintings.
In 2005, Charles Barbier met Clark Derbes, and a similar spark surged through Baton Rouge.
This is how Third Mind came to be.
To the owners of Frameworks Gallery, The Third Mind is an art exhibit made by two talented painters native to Baton Rouge. To the artists, The Third Mind is the culmination of 11 years of hard work, creativity and friendship.
When Derbes, now 35, met Barbier, a veteran of the Vietnam War, they had arranged to meet for the express purpose of creating art. Neither of them had any idea they’d become lifelong friends. When they started painting together, however, there was no doubt in Dernes’ mind that they’d collaborate again. Their chemistry was instant.
“It was a really intuitive experience,” Derbes said.
Derbes and Barbier met up every week after their first encounter until 2006, when Derbes moved to Vermont to pursue his career in a smaller town. Many friendships would have broken under the burden of distance, but their bond defied space and time, and the two have met up every year since the move to make a new work of art together.
They created their most prominent pieces in 2012, when they contributed to the BRWalls project. In a joint effort with about 50 other local groups, the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge commissioned some of the city’s prominent artists to paint popular buildings in the most frequented downtown areas. Barbier and Derbes were among the artists selected to realize the project.
On a purely aesthetic level, Barbier and Derbes have different styles. Barbier uses an eclectic range of bright neon colors to depict symbolic and purposely unsettling scenes. He incorporates pop-art into his paintings and often utilizes exaggerated images of the female form. In “Border Bust,” two patrol officers grope a half-naked woman on the border of Texas and Mexico as a police helicopter flies over them. The image is explicit and disturbing, but its artistic merit is undeniable.
Derbes, on the other hand, uses tribal symbols, classic Americana and simple abstract shapes in most of his work. He loves optical illusions and, more often than not, he prefers sculpture to canvas.
When they collaborate, though, it is difficult to tell the two artists apart. In “Alien Encounter,” an acrylic painting that depicts an alien invasion, shapes and colors blend into each other in such a way that they are indistinguishable from each other. The result is something closer to an abstract rainbow-colored canvas than any kind of distinct setting.
Derbes said making the artwork is not quite as easy, and working with another artist becomes an act of pure improvisation.
“Normally, you have this idea of what you’re going to create when you start making art, but you have to react to everything your partner does when you collaborate, so it’s always a surprise,” Derbes said.
The exhibit was inspired by the work Warhol and Basquiat made together in the ’70s. Their collaborations consummated their friendship in a way the whole world could appreciate. Similarly, Barbier and Derbes wanted to show the world that friends who paint together stay together.
“Two heads are better than one – that’s the idea behind The Third Mind,” Derbes said.
The Third Mind will open with a reception tomorrow night from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Frameworks Gallery at 8501 Highland Road. The duo’s art will hang until March 22. The gallery is open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
“Two heads are better than one – that’s the idea behind the Third Mind.”
"The Third Mind", collaborations between Charles Barbier and Clark Derbes, debuts Thursday, Feb. 7, 2014 at Frameworks Gallery on Highland Road.
