Lot 59 D

Antes' “Kopffüßler” (Head-Footer) are always a sort of figurative self-reflection derived from an inner dialogue. The artist himself explains this as follows: “I load and unload the figure symbolically, sentimentally, organically, and historically. I fill it and empty it with allusions, gestures, speculations, desires and anxieties. I imagine an image, I create someone as an allegory, a partner, a mirror. I multiply myself, assert myself, take possession, recognise myself and through myself I recognise something - in snapshots of long exposure. I do not encipher neither man nor woman. They both simply develop as they please, changing according to their own principles, they increase and decrease, lose an eye, unconsciously and painlessly, sometimes they need many arms, other times they don't need any at all […]“ (Horst Antes, Frühe Werke, exhib.cat. Galerie Michael Neumann, Dusseldorf 1988, n.pag.).
In the early 70s, the artist moved to a vineyard between Florence and Siena. The “Sieneser Kopf” is carried out in the same warm terracotta tones that also characterise the architecture of Siena. The figure depicted in profile, reduced to a disproportionate head and a hand, is holding up an additional smaller portrait like a portrait photograph, hiding its own eye area behind it. The lines of the profile are congruent. The larger figure appears to be hiding behind this portrait - apparently a self-portrait - with a mischievous smile, creating a double portrait of itself at the same time.