Wifredo Lam: At the Worlds Crossroads (1902-1946)
Fabrice Maze
2011 - 87 min - Couleur - France

The painter Wifredo Lam (1902-1982) is a unique figure in the 20th century modern arts' movements, one of the most innovative creators, alongside Pablo Picasso and Max Ernst. After a strict training in Cuba and Madrid, the artist of Chinese, African and Cuban descent discovered surrealism and African art in Paris. It's the essential encounter of poets - André Breton, Aimé Césaire, René Char, Michel Leiris... - that inspired his freedom and boldness. He is the pioneer of a mixed culture that transcends the dramas of his time and the stylistic frontiers. This great traveler has managed to create and express the universal through luxuriant works born out of poetic sparks and inhabited by crossbred characters.
Born in Cuba of a Chinese father and a mother of African-Spanish heritage, Wifredo Lam, after training as a classical painter for fifteen years in Spain, arrived in Paris in 1938. Three encounters, with Pablo Picasso, André Breton and Aimé Césaire, proved decisive for his art. He came to express a vision of the universal in "The Jungle" as no painter had ever done before.