Shapes/Colors

Galerie des Bains presents its first exhibition Shapes/Colors showing American and European artists. Different generations, with a similar mean of artistic expression, interrelate about the significant relation between shape and color.

“There is no shape without color in painting and the interaction between the two is profound and intimate”, so the French psychologist Ignace Meyerson when referring to contemporary art in his book Forme, Couleur, Mouvement dans les arts plastiques: 1953 – 1974 (Shape, Color, Movement in Fine Arts : 1953 – 1974). This coexistence of shape and color is one of the fundamental concepts in fine art processes and emerges very clearly in abstract, minimal as well as pop art.

In the works shown in Shapes/Colors, shapes are expressed through a series of colored fields, vivid or contrasted. Maybe a flat tint of color or rather more elaborate creates a subtle choice of perception. The eye wonders around questioning, but in the end surrenders. A reduced geometrical language with pure and elementary shapes, the repetition of a certain pattern that appears on a pictorial surface of loud or outrageous artificial colors, or by contrast on a soberer base through the insertion of voluminous blocs opening onto spatial fields. The transposition of a standard geometrical pattern in painting to the cut-out of the stretcher, called “shaped canvas”, was a common practice in the 60’s to create particular painting-objects. In a less radical and more subliminal spirit of mind, some works clearly use a more abstract and free shape to express lyrism and underline the expression of the intimate.

Daniel Buren (1938-) lives and works in Paris (France), French contemporary conceptual artist, best known for his recurring contrasting colored stripes and his artworks in situ in the urban space.

Judy Chicago (1939-) lives and works in Chicago (USA), American artist best known for her imposing art installation which highlight the role of women in history and culture.

Jean Corliano (1971-) lives and works between Barcelona and Milan (Spain/Italy), Italian-Belgian artist best known for his monochromes which underline a game of perception by juxtaposition of voluminous blocks on canvas.

Peter Halley (1953-) lives and works in New York (USA), American artist associated with the Neo-minimalist movement and best known for his vividly colored geometrical abstractions which he calls “prisons” or “cells”.

Allan McCollum (1944-) lives and works in New York (USA), American artist whose artworks are characterized by being produced in series.

Olivier Mosset (1944-) lives and works in Tucson (Arizona, USA), Swiss artist best known as a group member of BMPT and for his monochromic paintings.

Turi Simeti (1929-) lives and works in Milano (Italy), Italian artist best known for his minimalistic monochrome paintings, he is also linked to spatialism.

Frank Stella (1936-) lives and works in New York (USA), American artist who initiated the minimalism movement and best known for his painting series “Shaped Canvas”.