La Peinture Est Presque Abstraite

18 November - 23 December 2009

OPENING 17 November, 5.00 - 7.30pm

On a proposal by Olivier Gourvil and Geoffroy Gross, curated by Claude Temin-Vergez.

This exhibition is the second leg of a touring show from the 'Transpalette' Art Centre in Bourges, France. It brings together 4 artists from London, Jane Harris, Richard Kirwan, Daniel Sturgis and Claude Temin-Vergez and 4 artists working in France, Xavier Drong, Olivier Gourvil, Geoffroy Gross and Nicolas Royer.

The work in focus emerges from the genre of 'abstraction' yet makes use of everything representational - images, figures, icons, ornaments, screens, and signs - with a kind of distance that they all share. Far from mere repetition, they loop, clone and use aliases. These works enjoy playing equally with the pictorial and graphic codes of art as well as those of our contemporary environment.

The position of abstract painting today is problematic. Douglas Crimp popularized the view that the self-reflexive tradition in modernist painting was unable to progress beyond the monochrome ('The End of Painting,' 1983). Yves-Alain Bois believed the challenges and perceived impasse of abstract painting echoed a similar impasse within modernism itself (Painting as Model, 1993).
Survey exhibitions examining the position of painting often re-activate the traditional opposition abstraction-figuration. This opposition only serves to stigmatize the question of the 'tableau' within the heterogeneity of two painting traditions, one coming from Picabia and the other from Mondrian. Another view is proposed here: Painting as mixing-up of the codes between medias and art.

These artists play equally with contemporary pictorial and graphic codes and our everyday environment. What connects these works seem to be situated more in the impurity of its sources (as Lucile Encreve states), or notions of processes, drawing and sign-systems (as developed by artist and critic David Ryan) rather than a quest for purity as its modernist forerunners. These two critics will bring their contributions to the accompanying book to be launched during the show at the French Institute in London.

Book Launch and Symposium

Wednesday 18 November 2009, 2 - 5pm
Institut Francais, 17 Queensberry Place, London
Box Office: 0207 073 13 50

This exhibition is supported by Institut Francais.

 Image:  Olivier Gourvil, OHAH, 2008

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