Steinway & Sons

In Steinway and Sons, 1987, the artist uses an actual grand piano produced by the famous American company. Deprived of its functionality, the piano is covered by broad brushstrokes of acrylic color, reproducing the ideal pictorial touch that defines the modern artistic canon, from van Gogh to Neo-Expressionism. At the same time the tautology inherent in Lavier’s operation, in which painting is pure coating that replicates what it is covering, drains the pictorial gesture of any theatricality.