It is with a heavy
heart that I mark the passing of one year since the death of Zïlon/Raymond
Pilon. He and I had an uninterrupted friendship that lasted 43 years, until his
death. He ended his days exhausted, drained by the business of art and the
world in which we live.
"I'm known but
not renowned", he used to say. He couldn't understand how he still had to
prove himself after nearly 50 years as an artist. What did he still need to
prove? It was often said, if Zïlon had lived elsewhere, he would have been
celebrated for his immense talent. When he went to New York in the '80s and
stopped at Keith Haring's Pop Shop, he would say "that could have been
me...".
Every New Year's Day,
he would say, "This year is going to be the one. I can feel it.",
because he'd been offered an important contract or promising projects. He
believed in the spark that would light a blaze. Then one day, he stopped saying
it. He told me: “I don't believe in it anymore.” He realized that the sparks were
only misfires, extinguished as soon as they were lit.
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Photo of Zilon Lazer
by Diane Béatrice Lassonde © Circa 1980 |
When he was young, he
worked on construction sites for a few months. To say that he was out of place
and was cruelly reminded of it would be an understatement. In this hostile
environment, he tried to gain acceptance among the workers by drawing caricatures
of the bosses, which made his colleagues laugh. Art was his way of connecting.
To be accepted. To be loved. On his terms.
In restaurants, he
would draw on paper placemats and napkins. The waiters would often ask him for
a drawing. He was always delighted to give them a gift. Zïlon was difficult to
approach but had a gentle heart. He simply had to be won over.
He was among the
collateral damage of Covid. Confinement killed him. Like being locked away and
left for dead. Orwell's nightmare where life is dictated by the authorities in
a bureaucratic hell. Forced isolation. Cutting all ties. No faces anymore. Just
masks. For him, art was his way of reaching out. At the risk of sounding sappy,
he perfectly illustrated the innate need to make connections by creating
artwork. "That's all I know ", he used to say. Often that
outstretched hand was a clenched fist. Some cannot grab onto life any other way.
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Photo of Zilon Lazer
by Diane Béatrice Lassonde © Circa 1980 |
He often said that he
should have died in the '90s, before the world around us faded away.
A long time ago, he
had a project where he went to a class of young people with special needs. He
drew with them. He was blown away by their joy, as they marveled at the
pleasure of colour and shapes on paper. For him, this was art in its purest
sense. He stayed on a high for quite some time after this experience. But
eventually, reality called him back to order.
He dreamed of one day
becoming an old painter who would live secluded in his little house and spend
his time painting simply for the love of painting, and perhaps have one
exhibition a year. He could never reconcile his passion for creativity with the
mercantile nature of the art business.
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Zilon Lazer © Circa 1990
Photo by Diane Béatrice Lassonde © 2024 |
Zïlon had a highly
compartmentalized life, and different groups rarely interacted. If they did, it
was infrequent and short-lived. If you were part of one group you rarely
shifted into another, because he guarded his truly private life from his
acquaintances. Those he called his real friends could be counted on the fingers
of one hand.
He cried out loud and
clear to people who turned a deaf ear or were absent.
He spent much of his
adult life battling panic attacks. This soon earned him prescriptions for Xanax
and other benzodiazepines, for thirty years. Without hesitation, despite his
predisposition to addiction, having an alcoholic father and a mother numbed by Valium
all her life, without regard for the glaring risk this represented, he was kept
on these drugs. Though he didn't commit suicide, decades of benzos took away
his will to live. Towards the end of his life, he would often say, "I'm
tired of living”.
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Photo of Zilon Lazer
by Diane Béatrice Lassonde © 2014 |
Zïlon had a piercing
lucidity. He used to say “A dead artist is a good artist.” He scoffed at
posterity because he knew it was a farce. He knew that in the collective
memory, too few will remember the person, and too many will remember the
persona.
They say, 'Buy art
from living artists. Those who are dead don't need money." And that’s so
true. It's while they’re alive that artists’ achievements should be recognized,
because once they’re dead what's left will be used to enrich the gallerists, agents, and self-serving opportunists. That's all there is to it. They
are the only ones who gain from an artist’s death. And winning in death is no
victory at all.
What remains after
death are memories rooted in the souls of others, and if one was an artist,
what he or she created should be part of our cultural heritage. An artist's
work should be preserved and protected as cultural heritage, just like heritage
buildings are. But the law doesn't give this protection to an artist's work. So
there are those who will exploit it, monetize it and squander it. A few, here
and there, will remember the emotion and the gestures and pay homage to the
friend and his creative spirit.
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Zïlon Lazer © 1999
Photo by Diane Béatrice Lassonde © 2024 |
Zïlon believed in
friendship above all else. He refused to accept that we are alone in the world
and that no one can feel the life of another. He would say, "If we're
alone, then it's not worth living." He believed that the only true bonds
were those of the heart, not of the blood. He always talked about creating his “tribe",
friends who would have been there for each other, with integrity and loyalty.
The last time we
spoke, on his birthday, which was also the day he died, he told me that he
would likely end up in an old folks' home, and that if that was the case, he didn't
want to make it to 70. Because he knew that years go by quickly, and he knew
the fate of old people here. He had accompanied his mother during the last
years of her life.
He liked to sleep.
Even as a young man, when we lived together, he liked to take naps. He said he
could escape all his worries. He often dreamed he was flying. I hope the last
time you fell asleep for eternity you did so gently. I hope you found the peace
you were looking for, my lifelong friend. I miss you.
Zilon...What is left By Diane Béatrice
Lassonde
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Zilon Lazer © 1995
Photo by Diane Béatrice Lassonde © 2024 |
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Zïlon at Le Centre d'Art Diane-Dufresne
Photo by Diane Béatrice Lassonde © 2016 |
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Zïlon at Le Centre d'Art Diane-Dufresne
Photo by Diane Béatrice Lassonde © 2016
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Zïlon at Le Centre d'Art Diane-Dufresne
Photo by Diane Béatrice Lassonde © 2016
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