Raboutages | TEMPLON

Galerie Daniel Templon is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by famous French abstract painter Claude Viallat. With “Raboutages” a neologism describing the process of assembling various pieces of material, Claude Viallat pays a tribute to some of his masters, from Monet to Warhol.

Born in 1936, Claude Viallat is one of the founders of the movement « Supports Surfaces ». This avant-garde group, which originated from the South of France, was extremely influential in the seventies. It counted artists such as Vincent Bioulès, Louis Cane, Daniel Dezeuze, Jean-Pierre Pincemin or Noël Dolla. Together they called for a theoretical and political renewal of art making through an active questioning of the traditional language of painting. They rejected the limitations of traditional art by refusing the concept of « subject » and the use of canvases, stretchers or frames.

Claude Viallat works on loose fabric, without any frame, where he paints systematically the same abstract shape. Repeated on a variety of surfaces, ranging from camping tents to curtains or rugs and found fabrics, “his shape”, which evokes either a small bone, an X or an abstracted hand print, has become Claude Viallat’s trademark and only signature. It annihilates the notion of “subject” and allows Claude Viallat to lead a reflection on the meaning of the creative gesture and the status of “work of art”.

Several pieces in the exhibition are conceived as playful homage to other artists. For Monet, he found a fabric printed with the artist’s portrait. For Jean-Pierre Pincemin, his friend recently deceased, Claude Viallat uses the painters favorite colors – red, green and pale blue. As a complement, the series of “raboutages” exhibited explores the idea of recycling shapes and ideas. Armchair covers are sewn together with tents or parasols thus creating composite paintings with unexpected boundaries. As the artist explains “I wanted to break both surface and space (…) … what truly matters is the way in which colors play with the other colors below, how in an intuitive, unintended way, I succeed in organizing the surface with density and intensity.”

At 72, Claude Viallat is one of the major figures of French painting. He represented France at the Venice Biennial in 1988. His work is presented in many international collections including the Musée National d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Moma in New York, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Montréal and the National Museum of Osaka.

All works

The artist

Claude Viallat was born in 1936 in Nimes, France, where he continues to live and work. He is one of the founders of the Supports/Surfaces movement in the 1970s, which called for art to renew itself through a deconstruction of traditional materials. Viallat started to work on industrial tarp, endlessly repeating the same abstract pattern, resembling a small bone, which became his signature. Stencilled repeatedly onto a range of supports, the pattern asks us to reflect on the meaning of the creative act and the status of the work of art.