Claude Viallat, a sailor of color at MACBA

With a tide of large-format colors by Frenchman Claude Viallat, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Buenos Aires (MACBA) began its journey towards its tenth anniversary, in what is the artist's first retrospective in Argentina and Latin America.

The exhibition Libertad in colors, which brings together around 80 pieces, began in the 70s and goes until 2021, and is divided into different spaces that bring together the most significant aspects of his work based on triggers such as Deconstruction, Transparency Game, Objects and Sutures.

Viallat (Nimes, 1936) belonged to the group of Gallic artists Supports-Surfaces (Supports/Surfaces), which included Louis Cane, Marc Devade, Daniel Dezeuze, Patrick Saytour and André Valensi, who during the 1970s performed a practice of breaking with the traditional painting, from their components until its presentation.

Thus, they privileged the large format in the field of abstraction, the work on the ground that needed a physical display, where academic perfection was left aside and a more primitive, almost intuitive way of painting was sought.

Claude Viallat's work has been exhibited in most major art centers in Europe, North America and Asia. In 1982 a retrospective was held at the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris, in 1988 it represented France at the 43rd Venice Biennale. Already in 2018, a large installation of his was exhibited in the Unlimited section of Art Basel. And his works are present in major public and private collections, such as the MoMA in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the Pompidou Centre, the National Museum of Art in Osaka, the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal, among others.

“The movement I was part of comes very much in the spirit of what happened in the 1960s in the United States, which obviously also had its repercussions in Europe and went against traditional ways of painting,” Rocío Videla Dorna, MACBA curator, explains to Infobae Cultura.

Viallat's art is characterized by the use of supports made of different fabrics; thus, in the exhibition, you can see works on marquee canvas, curtains or printed fabrics, among others, and at the same time a pattern painted from a template that in its different periods takes on subtle changes, such as coloring or stuffing. “The pattern, whose shape is reminiscent of a taba, has no particular meaning and is presented in more or less striking colors, opaque or transparent,” wrote French curator Marie Sophie Lemoine.

On the ground floor, in the center of the Queen Nudo room, one of the artist's fetishes objects, not only as an individual piece to highlight its symbolic dimension as well as its utilitarian aspect. In his words “the knot is a fabulous invention, even more fabulous because it is anonymous”.

Around them, as a presentation of the scenic diversity in which he mounted his work, a bed cover, a tent cloth and other pieces, such as a triangle that seems to refer to a sailboat sailing the waves, welcome this conception that everything can be painted, everything can be altered and turned into a work, everything but a canvas traditional, that there is already a lot of that in history.

In the works of the period 73-76, Viallat seeks the extinction of the canvas or at least the loss of that identity that makes it recognizable, so through fire or prolonged exposure to the environment, it changes not only that DNA that makes it something recognizable to the everyday eye, but also takes it to extremes.

“He leaves many works outside, out in the open so that it interacts with the environment, which is also like an act totally contrary to the preservation that prevails in a museum where the piece is protected,” says Videla Dorna.

Of those years, the Échelle de Venise (Venice Staircase) stands out, composed of hanging strips dyed in color and separated by empty spaces, a concept that he takes up for his Stairs of Nîmes, but there the fabric has another presence, as well as patterns that could also be seen as links in chain somewhat deformed, links born not to unite.

“It presents this idea of deconstructing the traditional painting, so also this game with fabrics that could be disposable for many, taking what happened in the 1960s and also with works that somehow fall within the cut-out frame,” he adds.

For his part, Lemoine adds in the curatorial text: “Following the same spirit of deconstruction as the painting that nourishes his work, Viallat appropriates the shape of the hoop: ula ula rings, barrel circles, rods curved to the roundness, on which the artist lays strings and arranges pieces of painted fabric, where the shape of the bow, the memory of the drum of the embroiderers and the evocation of the barrel”.

Also presented in Libertad de colores are the games of transparency, which include networks, that framework where the “canvas” coexists fractionally, in shreds, as if it had been destroyed by scratches and which represent a link between painting and object.

Transparency resurfaces in the veils, also worked with the stencil technique and painted by hand, which mark the dissolution of the piece, with an almost ghostly presence, like the memory of what was and what will never be again, the path to the extinction of a look at art that stretched for centuries.

In this elimination of the paradigm, in the room of the second basement there are works of great and enormous size, the latter hanging from the ventiluz so that they can be traveled in 360, because the artist thought of them as a whole, the background is the front, the front is the background, and in turn, placing a gap in the middle - which refers to those voids of the stairs - which invites us to think of the piece as a continuity, an opening towards an art without a center.

“He is interested in showing both sides of the painting on the same plane. Most of them painted them on the floor, that is, they throw the cloth on the floor and squat down very much in the style of Jackson Pollock. So, you can see the marks of the painting, he is not so interested in hiding the artist's hand, and the splashes appear as part of the work. In Viallat, there is no search for perfection and excessive prodigiousness, on the contrary,” says Videla Dorna.

As part of the 10-year celebrations, MACBA extends its exhibitions to other venues, and so during the duration of Libertad de colores you can see two works by Viallat at Alcorta Shopping.

* Freedom of colors, retrospective of contemporary artist Claude Viallat, at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Buenos Aires (MACBA), Av. San Juan 328, until June 12. Monday to Friday from 12:00 to 19:00; Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from 12:00 to 19:00. Closed on Tuesdays. General admission, $400; Accredited students, teachers and retirees, $200; Cultural pass, $150; Children 6-12 years old, $200; Children under 6 and people with disabilities, free of charge. Wednesday: General; $200; accredited students, teachers and retirees, children 6 to 12 years old, free of charge.

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