French Connection_Perspectives on Support / Surface

About

The purpose being not merely to document a direct line of succession but rather to open up perspectives and to provide inspiration for new thoughts on topics of material, painting and color.

As a group, particularly in the period from 1967 - 1975, the main interest of the Support/Surface artists was in the material and the conditions of painting, in some cases taking it as far as a lyrical understanding of color. There is no manifesto. Inspiration was drawn from, among other things, the writings and ideas of Sigmund Freud, Clement Greenberg and Michael Fried, as well as the works of Simon Hantaï and Henry Matisse.

Their unprogrammatic and poetic approach to painting and to their materials sets the works of the Support/Surface artists apart from works of Arte Povera and from the in France well-known BMPT group. Presented alongside current contemporary art works, new perspectives, ideas and insights into the topic that Support/Surface introduced will emerge.

We are very grateful to welcome Bernard Ceysson, a proven expert and, for over forty years, a relentless defender of the visions of the Support/Surface artists, for a talk at the exhibition. Since 1960, he has been one of the key players in France's art world. He was the director of the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint Etienne and head of the Musée national d'art moderne am Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Today he is a well-known author and gallery owner.

With: Shahin Afrassiabi, André-Pierre Arnal, Florian Baudrexel, Eva Berendes, Katinka Bock, Miriam Böhm, Julien Dartois, Daniel Dezeuze, Noël Dolla, Valérie Favre, Katharina Grosse, Assaf Gruber, Simon Hantaï, Nadia Lichtig, Patrick Saytour, Claude Viallat