{"id":7738,"date":"2017-04-18T23:27:26","date_gmt":"2017-04-18T23:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kvartiras.com\/?p=7738"},"modified":"2020-06-15T16:40:49","modified_gmt":"2020-06-15T16:40:49","slug":"legend-laban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kvartiras.com\/en\/legend-laban\/","title":{"rendered":"The Legend of Blue."},"content":{"rendered":"

The life and work of Andr\u00e9 Laban\u2014an engineer on Cousteau\u2019s team, cinematographer, aquanaut, underwater painter, and guest of honour at the Cinema in Provence opening reception.<\/h3>\n
\n\t

In anticipation of the exhibition \u201cCinema in Provence,\u201d of which Andr\u00e9 Laban will be an honored participant, we have gathered some fascinating facts about this remarkable man, whose multifaceted talent left an immense mark on the science and art of the twentieth century.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Andr\u00e9<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

When Cousteau asked what he could do, Laban replied: \u201cNothing, to be honest \u2014 but I can fix all sorts of things, restore them, tinker around.\u201d Those words marked the beginning of a two-week internship and then of an absorbing career with the Calypso team that would last twenty-one years. Aboard the ship, Laban was given creative assignments to design housings for every kind of underwater filming. The 35 mm film camera boxes he developed were used in the making of The Silent World, which won the Palme d\u2019Or at the Cannes Film Festival and an Oscar in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\"049-2.A.L.uw.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Laban also invented the famous underwater scooters and, together with Jean Mollard, created the portable submarine Diving Saucer. In addition, for many years he piloted single-seat submersibles, diving in them to depths of five hundred meters.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

In 1965, several bold members of Cousteau\u2019s team spent a month in a spherical \u201cunderwater house\u201d at a depth of one hundred meters. And it was at that depth that Andr\u00e9 Laban fell finally and irrevocably in love with the blue of the ocean. Andr\u00e9 realized that only painting could convey the full palette of blue that belongs to the underwater world. And he began to paint. From life, underwater.<\/p>\n

The process is as wondrous and mesmerizing as the underwater world itself. The artist lays his canvas on the rocks and sand, takes out his paints and tools \u2014 and begins to create. Naturally, Laban first coats the canvas with a special solution he has prepared.<\/p>\n

\"049-<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Ekaterina Abrosimova, publisher of Andr\u00e9 Laban\u2019s book The Attraction of Blue, says that the most heartfelt pages are the artist\u2019s reflections on the color blue, the color of pure water: \u201cOn the Calypso I discovered a world that is not silent at all\u2026. It is fluid, dense, and blue \u2026 It is a world of infinity, and that is why I paint my pictures underwater.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2210_new<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/p>\n

The book The Attraction of Blue in Russian will be available at the vernissage on April 29.<\/a><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Laban\u2019s boundless love for the underwater depths is reflected even in the title of the film made about him, The Legend of the Color Blue \u2014 A Sketch for a Portrait of Andr\u00e9 Laban.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

At the vernissage of the Kvartira S gallery exhibition \u201cCinema in Provence,\u201d Andr\u00e9 Laban will appear as an honored participant and personally present his underwater paintings to the guests.<\/p>\n

\"Processed<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Watch the presentation of the Russian edition of the book The Lure of the Blue<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Watch a video about how Yuri Klimov, the gallery\u2019s curator for Russian-French cultural relations, met the Cousteau team and his friend Andr\u00e9 Laban<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(with thanks to Ekaterina Abrosimova for providing the material)<\/p>\n

Film THE LEGEND OF BLUE: A SKETCH FOR A PORTRAIT OF ANDR\u00c9 LABAN:\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The film\u2019s protagonist, Andr\u00e9 Laban, is a truly remarkable man. For 22 years, he worked aboard the Calypso as a member of Jacques-Yves Cousteau\u2019s team\u2014as an engineer, cinematographer, and pilot of the Diving Saucer mini-submarine. This film is the first to explore Commander Cousteau\u2019s complex relationship with his crew. At its heart is the story of an extraordinary artist, Andr\u00e9 Laban, who has painted some 700 (!) canvases underwater over the course of his life. Even today, at the age of 86, he continues to dive beneath the surface to create his astonishing paintings. <\/em>
\nThe film has received the following awards:<\/em>
\n\u2022 Grand Prix at the Silver Shark International Festival, Kyiv<\/em>
\n\u2022 Special Jury Prize for an Emotional Film at the World Festival of Underwater Images, Antibes, France<\/em>
\n\u2022 Special Jury Prize at the Golden Dolphin International Festival, Moscow<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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In anticipation of the exhibition \u201cCinema in Provence,\u201d of which Andr\u00e9 Laban will be an honored participant, we have gathered some fascinating facts about this remarkable man, whose multifaceted talent left an immense mark on the science and art of the twentieth century. *** When Cousteau asked what he could do, Laban replied: \u201cNothing, to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7749,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kvartiras.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kvartiras.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kvartiras.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kvartiras.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kvartiras.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kvartiras.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kvartiras.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kvartiras.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kvartiras.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kvartiras.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}