Supports/Surfaces
Supports/Surfaces
Supports/Surfaces, the last avant-garde of Western art? Perhaps. Unlike other experimental vanguard movements since the abstractionists, Supports/Surfaces neither proposed nor announced the «end of art.» These artists aspired not so much to return to a primitive illusionism as to find recourse, at modernism's end, to the constitutive principles of the work of art. This intent conducted them to articulate their practice around a theoretical reflection-rather French perhaps-but salubrious. Today, as one of the major movements of the 60s and 70s, they offer a fascinating example to younger artists the world over. They belong on the cusp, somewhere between modernity and postmodernity, in a position akin to Minimal art, Arte povera or Mono-ha.
INTERVIEW BERNARD CEYSSON/ RACHEL STELLA
Is Supports/Surfaces a group or a movement?
Whether you try to bring Supports/Surfaces into focus by enumerating its participants or by describing its place in history, the boundaries remain indefinite.
Unlike most other 20th century art labels, the expression "Supports/Surfaces" was not imagined into existence by a critic or dealer. The cohesive element binding Supports/Surfaces artists was their own theoretical debate, which took place among number of artists over a period of time in various manifestations.
Although I personally have curated exhibitions that purport to describe and define S/S, there are plenty of people ready to argue about my choice of artists, of events to historicize and of the dates with which I bracket S/S. This debate is surely proof that S/S is a meaningful term even if this meaning remains unfocused. Since many of the S/S artists are still prolific, it shouldn't come as a surprise that their work continues to evolve, and so the label attached to them must be plastic and responsive as their work. You might say that S/S describes an important phenomenon in the history of 20th century art.
You've attributed the Supports/Surfaces label to 12 artists. Who are they?
I included Arnal, Bioules, Cane, devade, Dezeuze, Dolla, Grand, Pages, Pincemin, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat in the exhibition Supports/Surfaces at the Musee d'Art Moderne Saint-Etienne in 1991. But there are other artists whose work has affinities with S/S and whom I have chosen to exhibit or write about in this context.
What dates define Supports/Surfaces in art history?
While it is far too early to set an end date, we can establish some historical milestones based on documented events. It is clear that by 1966 many of these artists were in contact with each other, and that this contact was increasingly productive not only in terms of their artwork, but also in terms of esthetic theory and exposure of their art and ideas to a wider public.
In 1966 an invitational exhibition called Impact was organized by Claude Viallat and the critic Jacques Lepage in Céret, in the French Pyrénées. It included numerous young artists who would, singly or under a group label, be at the forefront of the artistic scene in France during the 1960s and 1970s.
Impact included only two artists associated with S/S: Bioules and Viallat. They would soon show in Nice and environs, where Ben Vautier (now Ben) and Jacques Lepage were actively trying to create an art scene._ Indeed, most of the artists whose names will be forever associated with S/S were born in the south of France, not far from the Mediterranean. Arnal and Viallat in Nimes, Bioules in Montpellier, Dezeuze in Ales, Dolla and Saytour in Nice, Toni Grand in Gallargues-le-montueux, Pages in Cahors, Louis Cane in Beaulieu-sur-Mer. Only Devade, Valensi, Pincemin were born in Paris.
Given France's long tradition of centralization, exhibiting in Paris is always a sign of success, and this begins to happen for the artists associated with S/S in 1969. Jean-Pierre Pincemin organized an exhibition at the Ecole spéciale d'architecture and invited Viallat to show and bring in other participants. They were: Alocco, Dezeuze, Dolla, Pages, Saytour. The same year, Pages, Saytour and Viallat were included in the prestigious Salon de Mai, while Louis Cane has a one-man show at the Galerie Givaudan.
This is not to say that they renounced their home turf. In 1969, the poet and critic Jacques Lepage organized another event on the Riviera, this time an open-air exhibition in the landscape of Coaraze, a village near Nice. This was a cohesive moment for Dezeuze, Pages, Saytour and Viallat and Valensi, who filmed the event.
By 1970, the artists were exhibiting together or with others in numerous shows all over France: Nice, Perpignan, Montpellier, Limoges, Ceret and as far as Stockholm. As a group they rarely agreed about what political and theoretical viewpoints to profer; but they did have the collective ambition to contest the domination of the international art scene by Americans. With all their contacts in the south of French, they were particularly sensitive to the publicity for the big show the Foundation Maeght dedicated to American art in 1968, called l'Art Vivant, which followed directly upon the propagandistic L'Art du Réel USA 1948-1968, mounted at the Grand Palais in the fall of '68.
The label "Support-Surface" (without the plural "s") was coined by Bioules and employed for the first time in September 1970, for the exhibition Support-Surface which took place at ARC (Animation. Recherche. Confrontation), the new section of the Musée d'art moderne de la Ville run by Pierre Gaudibert. This exhibition included Bioules, Devade, Dezeuze, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat and Pages-- who retracted his participation before the opening.
You might say I met the work head-on there. I'd gone to see a Canadian artist Gaudibert was showing. I tripped on some kind of lattice on the floor. After swearing profusely, I did look around at all that hanging stuff, those repetitive forms, some of them vividly colored, without giving them much consideration. But a few months later I realized that since my demobilization from Algeria, I couldn't ever look at another school of Paris painting again, and even though my plan at the time was to become a specialist of the Quattrocento, I could not forget that particular exhibition of Gaudibert's.
With hindsight, you can see that this was the beginning and the end of the formation of a solid group, for the ARC exhibition fomented tensions between the artists and they soon disagreed on numerous theoretical, political and personal issues. It occurs to me now that much that much of the inexplicable hostility whether expressed or repressed might be a consequence of their unspeakable experience of the war in Algeria.
Nouvelle Peinture en France: pratiques/théories?
Though they stuck in my mind, these works were not among the first purchases I made for the Musée d'art et industrie in Saint-Etienne. Rather, we started acquisitions with young American artists whose work seemed so uninhibited and fresh compared to postwar painting in Europe.
In 1972 my memory of the ARC show was jogged by the exhibition 60/72, douze ans d'art contemporain en France at the Grand Palais. It was an unforgettable moment, with a lot of artists protesting and withdrawing their work. They demonstrated, produced tracts, and argued profusely with the organizers because their aspirations as artists were not fulfilled, pointing out the chasm between cultural institutions, traditional values and their own vocation.
Regardless of the rants and recriminations, the Grand Palais contained magnificent work by Viallat, Dolla, and Christian Jaccard. Soon after I encountered a young artist named Jean-Michel Meurice at the Centre National d'Art Plastique. I could hardly wait to buy some of these works for Saint-Etienne. Meanwhile my colleague Jacques Beauffet and I had seen pieces by Cane and Devade at the Templon gallery, which we also bought for the museum. The magazine Peinture- Cahiers théoriques, which just started publishing, contained many diatribes by and about these artists. Though we did not understand all their polemics, Beauffet and I decided we had to show them all. To give you an idea how unconscious our enthusiasm was, it was only years later, when reading someone's thesis that I learned that the museum archives show that we had completely revamped the museum's exhibition program within the space of a single day.
In any case, the final result of all this was the exhibition Nouvelle Peinture en France: pratiques/theories, which travelled to five venues between 1974 and 1975. Though we would have liked to organize a survey of contemporary art, we did not have the means (time, place or finances) to include analytische malerei, arte povera or American artists. We had already accounted for some of the new work outside of France in Réalité/Réalités (date?), in which we included Judd, Lewitt, Flavin, Stella, some American hyper-realists as well as Viallat, Boltanski, Messager. Nouvelle Peinture en France turned out to be exceedingly difficult to organize because what appeared as a loose association of like-minded artists turned out to be a hornet's nest. They kept excommunicating each other or withdrawing from the exhibition. Cane and Devade didn't want to show with Viallat or Saytour, and refused Meurice and Jaccard categorically. There is a paper place mat in the Saint-Etienne archives on which I noted every ironic and quarrelsome remark Louis Cane made about the other painters. As for Pages and Grand, everyone except Viallat said they don't exist, they're not even working any more. Nonetheless, we did mount the exhibition. Cane and Devade refused to participate. Valensi asked to stay in, while he also published a tract calling me some kind of agent of international capitalism-- in those days, hardly something to be proud of. We went to see Pages, who did participate; but we didn't have enough time to meet Toni Grand, who was always a difficult character, and who'd already begun to distance himself from the others. The show travelled extensively without either me or Jacques Beauffet because it had been co-opted by the state-run Agence Française d'Action Artistique. Perhaps we can date the success of these artists to this time, when their work was presented under good conditions even as their magazine offered an opportunity to annoy everyone with marxist-structuralist-freudian rhetoric. Following this group exhibition, I tried to show these artists individually and give them a context within the museum's collection.
What is so important about Peinture- cahiers théoriques?
This magazine, founded in 1971 and shipwrecked by 1985, remains a testimonial to the extraordinary intellectual agitation of the times. At first, the editorial committee consisted of Vincent Bioulès, Louis Cane, Marc Devade and Daniel Dezeuze. Undoubtedly Peinture- cahiers théoriques was meant to federate, but it soon became a focal point for dissent. Around the time it was founded Dolla, Saytour, Valensi, and Viallat returned to their studios in the south of France, while Bioulès, Cane, Devade and Dezeuze stayed in Paris where they devoted as much energy to writing and political activity as to painting. By 1972 when the 4th issue came out, Bioulès and Dezeuze had removed their names from the masthead, while Cane and Devade reached out to writers and theorists such as Marcelin Pleynet and Philippe Sollers associated with the very highbrowTel Quel magazine. You'd have to browse through several issues to understand what was so heady about the mixture of radical political ideas and hardline modernist esthetics. A typical example would be issue 8/9 (April 1974), which contained both a translation of Clement Greenberg's 1961 "Modernist Painting", and a long review of Philippe Sollers' book Sur le matérialisme by Louis Cane.
Supports/Surfaces in 1991?
That was the year we organized a tremendous retrospective in Saint-Etienne's newly inaugurated Museum of Modern Art. We were convinced that S/S artists were of international stature and that their renown had been inhibited. We wanted to show the work at its best in the formal, impersonal context of an exhibition with international, not local, aspirations. Although they attracted the beginnings of an international audience during the 1070s and 80s, they also became mired in being the most successful artists in France. At the time, government funding for the arts was at its peak, and a slew of new regional art funds had been created to support contemporary art. That most of the S/S artists taught in the public art academies and hence were civil servants might also have incited foreign viewers to imagine that their creativity was somehow fettered by being subsidized.
Looking back, it seems clear now that it was not just the overwhelming support that they received from French institutions that was diminishing their value to international audiences. They simply were not included in such ambitious and worldly exhibitions as Harald Szeemann's Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form (Works - Concepts - Processes - Situations - Information) which he mounted at the Bern Kunstalle in the spring of 1969. This was a determining moment in European, though not American, art. It was hurtful to the Supports/Surfaces artists because Szeemann's project was in some ways that of giving new life to European romanticism, that is to say German and Nordic romanticism. He was fascinated by a certain Surrealist spirit and romantic ideals, the german wanderers, the spiritual in art, and even had a taste for certain Swiss and German naifs. Not only were these ideals contradictory to those of S/S, but Szeemann's whole project was fundamentally exclusive of their kind of formalist art. Such a taste for romanticism might explain why northern europeans did not invest in S/S.
Why the American audience did not actively engage with S/S is more complex, particularly when you look at the affinities between their theoretical discourse and the equally abstruse intellectual confections proffered in such magazines as October. The reasons for American rejection of French art are as varied as the ideologies that spawned them. From those who decreed that the laboratory of modernism was shut down when the Germans marched into Paris to those who believed that only the virile abstractionists of New York City could counter socialist realism, many found reason to belittle the competition. The pressure from such powerful institutions as the MoMA or critics such as Greenberg made it all too easy to succumb to the idea that no more great painting could be expected to originate in France. Art dealers did not help the situation, as galleries in Paris happily promoted young American artists, while their colleagues in New York only paid attention to France's consecrated masters.
persistence of Supports/Surfaces spirit?
Well, you can hardly expect an enterprise whose philosophical underpinnings drew equally from Marx, Freud and Mao to play out in some tidy fashion. By adopting strategies of esthetic and political action, they were able invest their work with conceptual rigor. The early explorations of the limits of materials, the liberating process of doing, the transgression of boundaries between the event and the public became situations where the works formed links with each other. Whenever the works confront each other, affinities remain apparent. And if today these artists have a more solitary existence, it was the rebellious spirit of Supports/Surfaces which pointed out many of the inherent contradictions in the pictorial process that they continue to investigate with success in their current work. From the S/S experience they derived profoundly innovative works, which are ultimately far more subtle than the early debates which inspired them.
By now, the artists of Supports/Surfaces have, each in his own way, revealed some possible solutions to modernism running out of steam. They continue to question the notion of painting, pursuing a radical ethic in which the veracity of the work must be a product of its necessity. Louis Cane still critiques, and rightly so, with phrase "I don't see the necessity." Saytour makes a necessity out of his respect of recycled materials and forms, just as Viallat's motif is the message. For all of them, it remains essential to eschew affectation, to work with the reality of materials, to be wary of slick fabrication. Perhaps what distinguishes them from other avant-gardes is they have been proving for decades that it is possible to produce a renaissance without saying that art is dead.
1 Argimon, Arman, Ben, Bioules, Biras, Buraglio, Buren, Chubac, Dufo, Eppelé, Farhi, Gali-Camprubi, Gette, Gilli, Jordi-Pericot, Kermarrec, Malaval, Miralda, Parmentier, Parré, Prosi, Rabascall, Rouan, Salvado, Stotzki, Tissinier, Toroni, Valles Venet, Viallat._2 Nice: "Halle de remise en question" 14 dec 1967-4 jan 1968, organized by Ben includes Alocco, Arman, Ben, Biga, Brecht, Cane, Charton, Dolla, Fahri, Joe Jones, Yves Klein? Raysse, Saytour, Spoerri, Viallat.
Is Supports/Surfaces a group or a movement?
Whether you try to bring Supports/Surfaces into focus by enumerating its participants or by describing its place in history, the boundaries remain indefinite.
Unlike most other 20th century art labels, the expression "Supports/Surfaces" was not imagined into existence by a critic or dealer. The cohesive element binding Supports/Surfaces artists was their own theoretical debate, which took place among number of artists over a period of time in various manifestations.
Although I personally have curated exhibitions that purport to describe and define S/S, there are plenty of people ready to argue about my choice of artists, of events to historicize and of the dates with which I bracket S/S. This debate is surely proof that S/S is a meaningful term even if this meaning remains unfocused. Since many of the S/S artists are still prolific, it shouldn't come as a surprise that their work continues to evolve, and so the label attached to them must be plastic and responsive as their work. You might say that S/S describes an important phenomenon in the history of 20th century art.
You've attributed the Supports/Surfaces label to 12 artists. Who are they?
I included Arnal, Bioules, Cane, devade, Dezeuze, Dolla, Grand, Pages, Pincemin, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat in the exhibition Supports/Surfaces at the Musee d'Art Moderne Saint-Etienne in 1991. But there are other artists whose work has affinities with S/S and whom I have chosen to exhibit or write about in this context.
What dates define Supports/Surfaces in art history?
While it is far too early to set an end date, we can establish some historical milestones based on documented events. It is clear that by 1966 many of these artists were in contact with each other, and that this contact was increasingly productive not only in terms of their artwork, but also in terms of esthetic theory and exposure of their art and ideas to a wider public.
In 1966 an invitational exhibition called Impact was organized by Claude Viallat and the critic Jacques Lepage in Céret, in the French Pyrénées. It included numerous young artists who would, singly or under a group label, be at the forefront of the artistic scene in France during the 1960s and 1970s.
Impact included only two artists associated with S/S: Bioules and Viallat. They would soon show in Nice and environs, where Ben Vautier (now Ben) and Jacques Lepage were actively trying to create an art scene._ Indeed, most of the artists whose names will be forever associated with S/S were born in the south of France, not far from the Mediterranean. Arnal and Viallat in Nimes, Bioules in Montpellier, Dezeuze in Ales, Dolla and Saytour in Nice, Toni Grand in Gallargues-le-montueux, Pages in Cahors, Louis Cane in Beaulieu-sur-Mer. Only Devade, Valensi, Pincemin were born in Paris.
Given France's long tradition of centralization, exhibiting in Paris is always a sign of success, and this begins to happen for the artists associated with S/S in 1969. Jean-Pierre Pincemin organized an exhibition at the Ecole spéciale d'architecture and invited Viallat to show and bring in other participants. They were: Alocco, Dezeuze, Dolla, Pages, Saytour. The same year, Pages, Saytour and Viallat were included in the prestigious Salon de Mai, while Louis Cane has a one-man show at the Galerie Givaudan.
This is not to say that they renounced their home turf. In 1969, the poet and critic Jacques Lepage organized another event on the Riviera, this time an open-air exhibition in the landscape of Coaraze, a village near Nice. This was a cohesive moment for Dezeuze, Pages, Saytour and Viallat and Valensi, who filmed the event.
By 1970, the artists were exhibiting together or with others in numerous shows all over France: Nice, Perpignan, Montpellier, Limoges, Ceret and as far as Stockholm. As a group they rarely agreed about what political and theoretical viewpoints to profer; but they did have the collective ambition to contest the domination of the international art scene by Americans. With all their contacts in the south of French, they were particularly sensitive to the publicity for the big show the Foundation Maeght dedicated to American art in 1968, called l'Art Vivant, which followed directly upon the propagandistic L'Art du Réel USA 1948-1968, mounted at the Grand Palais in the fall of '68.
The label "Support-Surface" (without the plural "s") was coined by Bioules and employed for the first time in September 1970, for the exhibition Support-Surface which took place at ARC (Animation. Recherche. Confrontation), the new section of the Musée d'art moderne de la Ville run by Pierre Gaudibert. This exhibition included Bioules, Devade, Dezeuze, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat and Pages-- who retracted his participation before the opening.
You might say I met the work head-on there. I'd gone to see a Canadian artist Gaudibert was showing. I tripped on some kind of lattice on the floor. After swearing profusely, I did look around at all that hanging stuff, those repetitive forms, some of them vividly colored, without giving them much consideration. But a few months later I realized that since my demobilization from Algeria, I couldn't ever look at another school of Paris painting again, and even though my plan at the time was to become a specialist of the Quattrocento, I could not forget that particular exhibition of Gaudibert's.
With hindsight, you can see that this was the beginning and the end of the formation of a solid group, for the ARC exhibition fomented tensions between the artists and they soon disagreed on numerous theoretical, political and personal issues. It occurs to me now that much that much of the inexplicable hostility whether expressed or repressed might be a consequence of their unspeakable experience of the war in Algeria.
Nouvelle Peinture en France: pratiques/théories?
Though they stuck in my mind, these works were not among the first purchases I made for the Musée d'art et industrie in Saint-Etienne. Rather, we started acquisitions with young American artists whose work seemed so uninhibited and fresh compared to postwar painting in Europe.
In 1972 my memory of the ARC show was jogged by the exhibition 60/72, douze ans d'art contemporain en France at the Grand Palais. It was an unforgettable moment, with a lot of artists protesting and withdrawing their work. They demonstrated, produced tracts, and argued profusely with the organizers because their aspirations as artists were not fulfilled, pointing out the chasm between cultural institutions, traditional values and their own vocation.
Regardless of the rants and recriminations, the Grand Palais contained magnificent work by Viallat, Dolla, and Christian Jaccard. Soon after I encountered a young artist named Jean-Michel Meurice at the Centre National d'Art Plastique. I could hardly wait to buy some of these works for Saint-Etienne. Meanwhile my colleague Jacques Beauffet and I had seen pieces by Cane and Devade at the Templon gallery, which we also bought for the museum. The magazine Peinture- Cahiers théoriques, which just started publishing, contained many diatribes by and about these artists. Though we did not understand all their polemics, Beauffet and I decided we had to show them all. To give you an idea how unconscious our enthusiasm was, it was only years later, when reading someone's thesis that I learned that the museum archives show that we had completely revamped the museum's exhibition program within the space of a single day.
In any case, the final result of all this was the exhibition Nouvelle Peinture en France: pratiques/theories, which travelled to five venues between 1974 and 1975. Though we would have liked to organize a survey of contemporary art, we did not have the means (time, place or finances) to include analytische malerei, arte povera or American artists. We had already accounted for some of the new work outside of France in Réalité/Réalités (date?), in which we included Judd, Lewitt, Flavin, Stella, some American hyper-realists as well as Viallat, Boltanski, Messager. Nouvelle Peinture en France turned out to be exceedingly difficult to organize because what appeared as a loose association of like-minded artists turned out to be a hornet's nest. They kept excommunicating each other or withdrawing from the exhibition. Cane and Devade didn't want to show with Viallat or Saytour, and refused Meurice and Jaccard categorically. There is a paper place mat in the Saint-Etienne archives on which I noted every ironic and quarrelsome remark Louis Cane made about the other painters. As for Pages and Grand, everyone except Viallat said they don't exist, they're not even working any more. Nonetheless, we did mount the exhibition. Cane and Devade refused to participate. Valensi asked to stay in, while he also published a tract calling me some kind of agent of international capitalism-- in those days, hardly something to be proud of. We went to see Pages, who did participate; but we didn't have enough time to meet Toni Grand, who was always a difficult character, and who'd already begun to distance himself from the others. The show travelled extensively without either me or Jacques Beauffet because it had been co-opted by the state-run Agence Française d'Action Artistique. Perhaps we can date the success of these artists to this time, when their work was presented under good conditions even as their magazine offered an opportunity to annoy everyone with marxist-structuralist-freudian rhetoric. Following this group exhibition, I tried to show these artists individually and give them a context within the museum's collection.
What is so important about Peinture- cahiers théoriques?
This magazine, founded in 1971 and shipwrecked by 1985, remains a testimonial to the extraordinary intellectual agitation of the times. At first, the editorial committee consisted of Vincent Bioulès, Louis Cane, Marc Devade and Daniel Dezeuze. Undoubtedly Peinture- cahiers théoriques was meant to federate, but it soon became a focal point for dissent. Around the time it was founded Dolla, Saytour, Valensi, and Viallat returned to their studios in the south of France, while Bioulès, Cane, Devade and Dezeuze stayed in Paris where they devoted as much energy to writing and political activity as to painting. By 1972 when the 4th issue came out, Bioulès and Dezeuze had removed their names from the masthead, while Cane and Devade reached out to writers and theorists such as Marcelin Pleynet and Philippe Sollers associated with the very highbrowTel Quel magazine. You'd have to browse through several issues to understand what was so heady about the mixture of radical political ideas and hardline modernist esthetics. A typical example would be issue 8/9 (April 1974), which contained both a translation of Clement Greenberg's 1961 "Modernist Painting", and a long review of Philippe Sollers' book Sur le matérialisme by Louis Cane.
Supports/Surfaces in 1991?
That was the year we organized a tremendous retrospective in Saint-Etienne's newly inaugurated Museum of Modern Art. We were convinced that S/S artists were of international stature and that their renown had been inhibited. We wanted to show the work at its best in the formal, impersonal context of an exhibition with international, not local, aspirations. Although they attracted the beginnings of an international audience during the 1070s and 80s, they also became mired in being the most successful artists in France. At the time, government funding for the arts was at its peak, and a slew of new regional art funds had been created to support contemporary art. That most of the S/S artists taught in the public art academies and hence were civil servants might also have incited foreign viewers to imagine that their creativity was somehow fettered by being subsidized.
Looking back, it seems clear now that it was not just the overwhelming support that they received from French institutions that was diminishing their value to international audiences. They simply were not included in such ambitious and worldly exhibitions as Harald Szeemann's Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form (Works - Concepts - Processes - Situations - Information) which he mounted at the Bern Kunstalle in the spring of 1969. This was a determining moment in European, though not American, art. It was hurtful to the Supports/Surfaces artists because Szeemann's project was in some ways that of giving new life to European romanticism, that is to say German and Nordic romanticism. He was fascinated by a certain Surrealist spirit and romantic ideals, the german wanderers, the spiritual in art, and even had a taste for certain Swiss and German naifs. Not only were these ideals contradictory to those of S/S, but Szeemann's whole project was fundamentally exclusive of their kind of formalist art. Such a taste for romanticism might explain why northern europeans did not invest in S/S.
Why the American audience did not actively engage with S/S is more complex, particularly when you look at the affinities between their theoretical discourse and the equally abstruse intellectual confections proffered in such magazines as October. The reasons for American rejection of French art are as varied as the ideologies that spawned them. From those who decreed that the laboratory of modernism was shut down when the Germans marched into Paris to those who believed that only the virile abstractionists of New York City could counter socialist realism, many found reason to belittle the competition. The pressure from such powerful institutions as the MoMA or critics such as Greenberg made it all too easy to succumb to the idea that no more great painting could be expected to originate in France. Art dealers did not help the situation, as galleries in Paris happily promoted young American artists, while their colleagues in New York only paid attention to France's consecrated masters.
persistence of Supports/Surfaces spirit?
Well, you can hardly expect an enterprise whose philosophical underpinnings drew equally from Marx, Freud and Mao to play out in some tidy fashion. By adopting strategies of esthetic and political action, they were able invest their work with conceptual rigor. The early explorations of the limits of materials, the liberating process of doing, the transgression of boundaries between the event and the public became situations where the works formed links with each other. Whenever the works confront each other, affinities remain apparent. And if today these artists have a more solitary existence, it was the rebellious spirit of Supports/Surfaces which pointed out many of the inherent contradictions in the pictorial process that they continue to investigate with success in their current work. From the S/S experience they derived profoundly innovative works, which are ultimately far more subtle than the early debates which inspired them.
By now, the artists of Supports/Surfaces have, each in his own way, revealed some possible solutions to modernism running out of steam. They continue to question the notion of painting, pursuing a radical ethic in which the veracity of the work must be a product of its necessity. Louis Cane still critiques, and rightly so, with phrase "I don't see the necessity." Saytour makes a necessity out of his respect of recycled materials and forms, just as Viallat's motif is the message. For all of them, it remains essential to eschew affectation, to work with the reality of materials, to be wary of slick fabrication. Perhaps what distinguishes them from other avant-gardes is they have been proving for decades that it is possible to produce a renaissance without saying that art is dead.
1 Argimon, Arman, Ben, Bioules, Biras, Buraglio, Buren, Chubac, Dufo, Eppelé, Farhi, Gali-Camprubi, Gette, Gilli, Jordi-Pericot, Kermarrec, Malaval, Miralda, Parmentier, Parré, Prosi, Rabascall, Rouan, Salvado, Stotzki, Tissinier, Toroni, Valles Venet, Viallat._2 Nice: "Halle de remise en question" 14 dec 1967-4 jan 1968, organized by Ben includes Alocco, Arman, Ben, Biga, Brecht, Cane, Charton, Dolla, Fahri, Joe Jones, Yves Klein? Raysse, Saytour, Spoerri, Viallat.
Antibes: 5eme festival d'arts plastiques de la Cote d'Azur, 13 dec 67- 15 jan 68: Azemar, Bioules, Bodek, Buraglio, Comby, Delamane, Dezeuze, Kanter, Mahon, Moreels, O'Fhlian, Pages, Pinel, Poli, Prosi, Ritchie, Rouan, Roussil, Stampfli, Theunischen, Treal._
Solo shows at Ceysson Gallery
Supports/Surfaces, Paris
October 20 - October 25, 2020
Group shows at Ceysson Gallery
Unfurled: Supports/Surfaces 1966-1976, Offsite
February 01 - April 21, 2019
SUPPORTS / SURFACES, Saint-Etienne
May 30 - August 30, 2008
CHRONOLOGY
1966
Impact 1, Musée d'Art moderne, Céret, May. Exhibition organized by Claude Viallat and Jacques Lepage (Arman, Ben, Bioulès, Biras, Buraglio, Buren, Chubac, Dufo, Eppelé, Farhi, Gali-Camprubi, Gette, Gilli, Jordi-Pericot, Kermarrec, Malaval, Miralda, Parmentier, Parré, Prosi, Rabascall, Rouan, Salvado, Stotzki, Tissinier, Toroni, Venet, Viallat).
Le Litre de Var Supérieur, Galerie A, Nice, 26October.Exhibition organized byBen and François Mérino (Alocco, Ben, Bozzi, Brecht, Chubac, Dietman, Farhi, Mosset, Klein, Oldenbourg). "Viallat's contribution described as Viallat on the oor, on the walls, on the ceiling, in the street, on the sidewalk."
1967
Vth Paris Biennial (included Toni Grand and Patrick Saytour).
Hall des remises en question, Nice,
14 December 1967 - 4 January 1968. Exhibition organized by Ben (Alocco, Arman, Ben, Biga, Brecht, Cane: rubber stamps; Charton, Dolla: drying racks; Farhi, Joe Jones, Klein, Raysse, Saytour: stomped cardboard; Spoerri, Viallat: unstretched canvas).
1968
Quelque chose, open-air exhibition on Croisette Beach, in front of the Palais des Festivals, Cannes, 18 May (Alocco, Chubac, Saytour, Viallat). Patrick Saytour unrolled a canvas (14 x 0.80 m) covered in progressive rows of blue and white stripes, and worked another canvas (8 x 2 m)
by folding in order to obtain a regular alignment of blue and red brush marks
on a white ground. Claude Viallat unfolded a canvas (13 x 2 m) on which an orange form was repeatedly painted on a blue ground.
Oltre l'avanguardia, Anfo, 28 August - 3 September (Alocco, Chubac, Dolla, Pagès, Saytour, Viallat).
Un paese + l'avanguardia, Novara, 5-18October (Alocco,Chubac,Dolla, Pagès, Saytour, Viallat).
Dossier 68, assembling multiples and serigraphs by 48 artists including: Alocco, Arnal, Ben, Cane, Charvolen, Chubac, Dezeuze, Dolla, Gerz, Messager, Mosset, Pagès, Saytour, Viallat...
1969
II Centro La Comune, Brescia,
21-27 February (Pagès showed 40 traditional arrangements of 1 cubic meter of bricks and 1 cubic meter of logs; Valensi presented a lm and photographic documents).
Louis Cane solo show at Galerie Claude Givaudan, Paris.
Alocco, Dezeuze, Dolla, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Viallat. Peinture, sculpture, architecture, École spéciale d'architecture, Paris, 14 April - 4 May. Exhibition organized by Pincemin who appointed Viallat to choose the participants. Buraglio refused to participate.
La Peinture en question, Musée des Beaux- Arts, Le Havre, 7 June - 7 July (Cane, Dezeuze, Saytour, Viallat).
The catalog for this exhibition set out a version of the rst program of the future Supports/Surfaces group.
Coaraze 69, Coaraze, 21 - 27 July (Dezeuze, Pagès, Saytour, Viallat). Open-air exhibition orchestrated by Jacques Lepage. Film by André Valensi made on this occasion.
ABC Productions, open-air exhibition, square de Palavas, Montpellier, July (Alkema, Azemard, Bioulès: six lacquered doors presented in three diptychs, Clément).
Noël Dolla, Restructuration n° 2, Authion summit in the French Alps, October (painted rocks).
1970
Dezeuze, Pagès, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat, Foyer International d'Accueil de Paris, 20 March - 5 April.
100 artistes dans la ville, Musée du Travail, Montpellier, 5 - 20 May (Anderson, Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Dolla, Pincemin, Saytour, Viallat).
Rencontres, Limoges, 16 - 23 May. Exhibition in the city organized by Ben, Jude, Viallat, Mazeaufroid (Blanqui hall: Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Dolla, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat).
Noël Dolla, Restructuration n° 3, Authion summit in the French Alps (work on snow).
NoëlDolla,Restructurationn°4,Authion summit, June (traces in nature).
Intérieur-Extérieur, summer 1970 (Dezeuze, Pagès, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat). In Levens, the artists treated a eld; in Villefranche: the beach and a wall; in Aubais: a quarry;
in Nice: the forest, the dunes, the underbrush; in Cantaron: the bed of the Paillon river; in Banyuls-sur-Mer: an inlet (la Tanquade); in Le Boulou: a dead end;
in Céret: a plaza; in Perpignan: an art gallery (La main de fer); in Le Boulou: a barn;
in Maguelonne: the beach.
Marcelin Pleynet, "Contradiction principale, contradiction spéci que", Tel Quel, n° 43, autumn.
Supports/Surfaces, ARC, Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville, Paris, 23September-15October (Bioulès, Devade, Dezeuze, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat).
Publications: Supports/Surfaces and Tract Vert: Cane (absent from the exhibition), Devade, Dezeuze.
1971
Noël Dolla placed cork buoys on the Tinée river, Nice, February.
Travaux de l'été 70, Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris,15-22April (Dezeuze,Pagès, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat).
Supports/Surfaces, Art et Prospective, théâtre de la Cité internationale, Cité universitaire, Paris, 19 April - 8 May (Bioulès, Devade, Dezeuze, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat;
Arnal, Cane, Dolla, Pincemin participated as guests).
1st issueofthereviewPeinture-Cahiers théoriques, June (editorial committee: Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze).
Supports/Surfaces, éâtre de Nice, 15 - 20 June (Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Dolla, Grand, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat). Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, exhibited in the theater lobby; Dolla, Grand, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat, exhibited in the the theater and on the stage (thereby materializing in space their recent scission). Invited, Pincemin did not send his artworks, though he created the poster.
Dolla, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat, Rivière des Outaouais, Lac des Castors, Quebec, August (organized by Gervais Jassaud).
Grand, Saytour, Viallat, interventions in the open air, Camargue, August.
Saytour, Viallat, interventions in the open air, Saint-Jean-du-Gard, August.
VIIth Paris Biennial, 24 September -1 November (Dolla, Viallat).
Pagès and Valensi appeared in the catalog but did not participate in the exhibition. Supports/Surfaces was represented only through the mention: "Supports/Surfaces; Peinture, Cahiers théoriques" followed by the names of the six artists (Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Pincemin), and through the sales of the book by Maria Antonietta Macciocchi: De la Chine.
Tract vert: La Biennale de Paris ou lorsque les ministres d'Aragon se font les commanditaires des ministères (24 September).
ClaudeViallat,open-airexhibitionina forest, Limoges, October.
1972
Jaccard, Entrelacs, outils, empreintes sur toiles contrepliées, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, May.
60-72, Douze ans d'art contemporain en France, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, May-September (included Dolla
and Viallat).
1973
Louis Cane - Marc Devade, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, March.
Réalité - Réalités, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne, March (Bertholin, Cane, Bechtle, Salt, Cottingham, Don Eddy, Staiger, Flavin, Judd, LeWitt, Stella, Boltanski, Le Gac, Messager, Meurice, Viallat).
XIIth São Paulo Biennial, Brazil, August (included Arnal, Jaccard).
VIIIth Paris Biennial, September (included Arnal, Cane, Dolla, Jaccard, Meurice, Rouan).
La ri essione sulla pittura - 7a Rassegna internazionale d'Arte, Acireale,
29 September-15 October
(included Cane, Devade, Viallat).
Marc Devade, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, December.
Jean-Michel Meurice, CNAC, Paris, December.
1974
Faucher, Hantaï, Rouan, Viallat, Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York.
Louis Cane, Galerie Rudolf Zwirner, Cologne, March.
Noël Dolla, Galleria La Bertesca, Genoa, May.
Nouvelle Peinture en France -Pratiques/ Théories, travelling exhibition, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne, 21 June -
29 July; Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Chambéry, 5 August -15 September; Kunstmuseum, Lucerne, 29 September - November; Neue Galerie/Sammlung Ludwig,Aix-la-Chapelle. eexhibition was also supposed to travel to Portugal and Canada (Bioulès, Dezeuze, Dolla, Jaccard, Meurice, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat). Cane and Devade, invited, refused to show.
Claude Viallat, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne, December.
1975
Nouvelle Peinture en France - Pratiques / Théories, Neue Galerie, Aix-la-Chapelle, January-February; CAPC Bordeaux, March-April; Musée de Porto, May-June; Fondation Gulbenkian, Lisboa, July- August; Fondation Sonja Henie and Niels Onstad, Hovikodden, 16 October -
5 November (continuation of the travelling show originated at Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne, which included Dolla, Jaccard, Meurice, Valensi, Bioulès, Dezeuze, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Viallat).
Fundamental Painting, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 22 April - 22 June; exhibition organized by Rini Dippel and E. L. de Wilde (included Cane).
Pittura, Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, April-May (included Dolla, Viallat).
Analytische Malerei, Galleria La Bertesca- Masnata, Düsseldorf, June; exhibition organized by Klaus Honnef and Catherine Millet (included Devade, Dolla, Viallat).
12 x 1, Europalia 75, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, November-December (included Cane, Dezeuze, Meurice, Viallat). Several galleries in Brussels participated: Dezeuze and Meurice exhibited at Galerie D.; Pincemin,MartinezandValensishowedat Galerie Kirwin.
A proposito della Pittura... / Betre ende
het Schildern... / Concerning Painting..., travelling exhibition, Museum Van Bommel - Van Dam, Venlo; Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam; Hedendaagse Kunst, Utrecht, November 1975 - march 1976 (included Bannard, Cacciola, Camoni, Ceccini, De Keyser, Dolla, Erben, Fisher, Gastini, Gaul, Gri a, Guarnieri, Isnard, Morales, Olitski, Poons, Rajlich, Teraa, Van Severen, Viallat, Zappettini).
1976
Nouvelle Peinture en France - Pratiques / Théories, Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk, 21 February - 14 March.
Cronaca - percorso didattico attraverso la pittura americana degli anni 60 e la pittura europea degli anni 70, Galleria Civica, Modena, 18 March - 2 May (included Cane, Devade, Dolla).
Toni Grand - Bernard Pagès, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne, April-May.
Jean-Pierre Pincemin, Peintures, ARC, Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville, Paris, April-July.
Patrick Saytour, Galerie Éric Fabre, Paris.
Christian Jaccard, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne, June. e exhibition travelled to the French Institute in Stockholm in September.
I colori della Pittura - una situazione europea, Istituto Italo-Latino Americano, Roma, 8july-10September (includedDevade, Dolla, Cane, Valensi, Viallat).
06 - Art 76, University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley; Sarah Campbell Bla er Gallery, University of Houston, Texas; Neuberger Museum, State University of New York, 13 November 1976 - 10 January 1977 (Aillaud, Erró, Anne and Patrick Poirier, Rouan, Titus- Carmel, Viallat).
1977
L'avant-garde1960-1976:troisvilles,
trois collections, Musée Cantini, Marseille, February-March; Musée de Peinture
et de Sculpture, Grenoble, April-May; Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne, summer; Musée national d'Art moderne, Centre national d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris, fall (included Bioulès, Buraglio, Cane, Dezeuze, Grand, Jaccard, Meurice, Pagès, Pincemin, Rouan, Valensi, Viallat).
Canvasses without stretchers, Gimpel Gallery, London, October (Dolla, Jaccard, Meurice, Viallat).
Unstretched Surfaces, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,
5 November - 16 December (Dezeuze, Jaccard, Meurice, Pincemin, Bernadette Bour, Burchman, Delaroyère, Christopher Hill, Mac Collum, Plagens, Wudl, Yokomi).
Bilder ohne Bilder, Rheinisches Landes- museum, Bonn, 8 December 1977 -
8 January 1978 (included Cane, Devade)
Supports/Surfaces, Paris
October 20 - October 25, 2020
Group shows at Ceysson Gallery
Unfurled: Supports/Surfaces 1966-1976, Offsite
February 01 - April 21, 2019
SUPPORTS / SURFACES, Saint-Etienne
May 30 - August 30, 2008
CHRONOLOGY
1966
Impact 1, Musée d'Art moderne, Céret, May. Exhibition organized by Claude Viallat and Jacques Lepage (Arman, Ben, Bioulès, Biras, Buraglio, Buren, Chubac, Dufo, Eppelé, Farhi, Gali-Camprubi, Gette, Gilli, Jordi-Pericot, Kermarrec, Malaval, Miralda, Parmentier, Parré, Prosi, Rabascall, Rouan, Salvado, Stotzki, Tissinier, Toroni, Venet, Viallat).
Le Litre de Var Supérieur, Galerie A, Nice, 26October.Exhibition organized byBen and François Mérino (Alocco, Ben, Bozzi, Brecht, Chubac, Dietman, Farhi, Mosset, Klein, Oldenbourg). "Viallat's contribution described as Viallat on the oor, on the walls, on the ceiling, in the street, on the sidewalk."
1967
Vth Paris Biennial (included Toni Grand and Patrick Saytour).
Hall des remises en question, Nice,
14 December 1967 - 4 January 1968. Exhibition organized by Ben (Alocco, Arman, Ben, Biga, Brecht, Cane: rubber stamps; Charton, Dolla: drying racks; Farhi, Joe Jones, Klein, Raysse, Saytour: stomped cardboard; Spoerri, Viallat: unstretched canvas).
1968
Quelque chose, open-air exhibition on Croisette Beach, in front of the Palais des Festivals, Cannes, 18 May (Alocco, Chubac, Saytour, Viallat). Patrick Saytour unrolled a canvas (14 x 0.80 m) covered in progressive rows of blue and white stripes, and worked another canvas (8 x 2 m)
by folding in order to obtain a regular alignment of blue and red brush marks
on a white ground. Claude Viallat unfolded a canvas (13 x 2 m) on which an orange form was repeatedly painted on a blue ground.
Oltre l'avanguardia, Anfo, 28 August - 3 September (Alocco, Chubac, Dolla, Pagès, Saytour, Viallat).
Un paese + l'avanguardia, Novara, 5-18October (Alocco,Chubac,Dolla, Pagès, Saytour, Viallat).
Dossier 68, assembling multiples and serigraphs by 48 artists including: Alocco, Arnal, Ben, Cane, Charvolen, Chubac, Dezeuze, Dolla, Gerz, Messager, Mosset, Pagès, Saytour, Viallat...
1969
II Centro La Comune, Brescia,
21-27 February (Pagès showed 40 traditional arrangements of 1 cubic meter of bricks and 1 cubic meter of logs; Valensi presented a lm and photographic documents).
Louis Cane solo show at Galerie Claude Givaudan, Paris.
Alocco, Dezeuze, Dolla, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Viallat. Peinture, sculpture, architecture, École spéciale d'architecture, Paris, 14 April - 4 May. Exhibition organized by Pincemin who appointed Viallat to choose the participants. Buraglio refused to participate.
La Peinture en question, Musée des Beaux- Arts, Le Havre, 7 June - 7 July (Cane, Dezeuze, Saytour, Viallat).
The catalog for this exhibition set out a version of the rst program of the future Supports/Surfaces group.
Coaraze 69, Coaraze, 21 - 27 July (Dezeuze, Pagès, Saytour, Viallat). Open-air exhibition orchestrated by Jacques Lepage. Film by André Valensi made on this occasion.
ABC Productions, open-air exhibition, square de Palavas, Montpellier, July (Alkema, Azemard, Bioulès: six lacquered doors presented in three diptychs, Clément).
Noël Dolla, Restructuration n° 2, Authion summit in the French Alps, October (painted rocks).
1970
Dezeuze, Pagès, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat, Foyer International d'Accueil de Paris, 20 March - 5 April.
100 artistes dans la ville, Musée du Travail, Montpellier, 5 - 20 May (Anderson, Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Dolla, Pincemin, Saytour, Viallat).
Rencontres, Limoges, 16 - 23 May. Exhibition in the city organized by Ben, Jude, Viallat, Mazeaufroid (Blanqui hall: Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Dolla, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat).
Noël Dolla, Restructuration n° 3, Authion summit in the French Alps (work on snow).
NoëlDolla,Restructurationn°4,Authion summit, June (traces in nature).
Intérieur-Extérieur, summer 1970 (Dezeuze, Pagès, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat). In Levens, the artists treated a eld; in Villefranche: the beach and a wall; in Aubais: a quarry;
in Nice: the forest, the dunes, the underbrush; in Cantaron: the bed of the Paillon river; in Banyuls-sur-Mer: an inlet (la Tanquade); in Le Boulou: a dead end;
in Céret: a plaza; in Perpignan: an art gallery (La main de fer); in Le Boulou: a barn;
in Maguelonne: the beach.
Marcelin Pleynet, "Contradiction principale, contradiction spéci que", Tel Quel, n° 43, autumn.
Supports/Surfaces, ARC, Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville, Paris, 23September-15October (Bioulès, Devade, Dezeuze, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat).
Publications: Supports/Surfaces and Tract Vert: Cane (absent from the exhibition), Devade, Dezeuze.
1971
Noël Dolla placed cork buoys on the Tinée river, Nice, February.
Travaux de l'été 70, Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris,15-22April (Dezeuze,Pagès, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat).
Supports/Surfaces, Art et Prospective, théâtre de la Cité internationale, Cité universitaire, Paris, 19 April - 8 May (Bioulès, Devade, Dezeuze, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat;
Arnal, Cane, Dolla, Pincemin participated as guests).
1st issueofthereviewPeinture-Cahiers théoriques, June (editorial committee: Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze).
Supports/Surfaces, éâtre de Nice, 15 - 20 June (Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Dolla, Grand, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat). Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, exhibited in the theater lobby; Dolla, Grand, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat, exhibited in the the theater and on the stage (thereby materializing in space their recent scission). Invited, Pincemin did not send his artworks, though he created the poster.
Dolla, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat, Rivière des Outaouais, Lac des Castors, Quebec, August (organized by Gervais Jassaud).
Grand, Saytour, Viallat, interventions in the open air, Camargue, August.
Saytour, Viallat, interventions in the open air, Saint-Jean-du-Gard, August.
VIIth Paris Biennial, 24 September -1 November (Dolla, Viallat).
Pagès and Valensi appeared in the catalog but did not participate in the exhibition. Supports/Surfaces was represented only through the mention: "Supports/Surfaces; Peinture, Cahiers théoriques" followed by the names of the six artists (Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Pincemin), and through the sales of the book by Maria Antonietta Macciocchi: De la Chine.
Tract vert: La Biennale de Paris ou lorsque les ministres d'Aragon se font les commanditaires des ministères (24 September).
ClaudeViallat,open-airexhibitionina forest, Limoges, October.
1972
Jaccard, Entrelacs, outils, empreintes sur toiles contrepliées, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, May.
60-72, Douze ans d'art contemporain en France, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, May-September (included Dolla
and Viallat).
1973
Louis Cane - Marc Devade, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, March.
Réalité - Réalités, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne, March (Bertholin, Cane, Bechtle, Salt, Cottingham, Don Eddy, Staiger, Flavin, Judd, LeWitt, Stella, Boltanski, Le Gac, Messager, Meurice, Viallat).
XIIth São Paulo Biennial, Brazil, August (included Arnal, Jaccard).
VIIIth Paris Biennial, September (included Arnal, Cane, Dolla, Jaccard, Meurice, Rouan).
La ri essione sulla pittura - 7a Rassegna internazionale d'Arte, Acireale,
29 September-15 October
(included Cane, Devade, Viallat).
Marc Devade, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, December.
Jean-Michel Meurice, CNAC, Paris, December.
1974
Faucher, Hantaï, Rouan, Viallat, Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York.
Louis Cane, Galerie Rudolf Zwirner, Cologne, March.
Noël Dolla, Galleria La Bertesca, Genoa, May.
Nouvelle Peinture en France -Pratiques/ Théories, travelling exhibition, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne, 21 June -
29 July; Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Chambéry, 5 August -15 September; Kunstmuseum, Lucerne, 29 September - November; Neue Galerie/Sammlung Ludwig,Aix-la-Chapelle. eexhibition was also supposed to travel to Portugal and Canada (Bioulès, Dezeuze, Dolla, Jaccard, Meurice, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat). Cane and Devade, invited, refused to show.
Claude Viallat, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne, December.
1975
Nouvelle Peinture en France - Pratiques / Théories, Neue Galerie, Aix-la-Chapelle, January-February; CAPC Bordeaux, March-April; Musée de Porto, May-June; Fondation Gulbenkian, Lisboa, July- August; Fondation Sonja Henie and Niels Onstad, Hovikodden, 16 October -
5 November (continuation of the travelling show originated at Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne, which included Dolla, Jaccard, Meurice, Valensi, Bioulès, Dezeuze, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Viallat).
Fundamental Painting, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 22 April - 22 June; exhibition organized by Rini Dippel and E. L. de Wilde (included Cane).
Pittura, Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, April-May (included Dolla, Viallat).
Analytische Malerei, Galleria La Bertesca- Masnata, Düsseldorf, June; exhibition organized by Klaus Honnef and Catherine Millet (included Devade, Dolla, Viallat).
12 x 1, Europalia 75, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, November-December (included Cane, Dezeuze, Meurice, Viallat). Several galleries in Brussels participated: Dezeuze and Meurice exhibited at Galerie D.; Pincemin,MartinezandValensishowedat Galerie Kirwin.
A proposito della Pittura... / Betre ende
het Schildern... / Concerning Painting..., travelling exhibition, Museum Van Bommel - Van Dam, Venlo; Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam; Hedendaagse Kunst, Utrecht, November 1975 - march 1976 (included Bannard, Cacciola, Camoni, Ceccini, De Keyser, Dolla, Erben, Fisher, Gastini, Gaul, Gri a, Guarnieri, Isnard, Morales, Olitski, Poons, Rajlich, Teraa, Van Severen, Viallat, Zappettini).
1976
Nouvelle Peinture en France - Pratiques / Théories, Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk, 21 February - 14 March.
Cronaca - percorso didattico attraverso la pittura americana degli anni 60 e la pittura europea degli anni 70, Galleria Civica, Modena, 18 March - 2 May (included Cane, Devade, Dolla).
Toni Grand - Bernard Pagès, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne, April-May.
Jean-Pierre Pincemin, Peintures, ARC, Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville, Paris, April-July.
Patrick Saytour, Galerie Éric Fabre, Paris.
Christian Jaccard, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne, June. e exhibition travelled to the French Institute in Stockholm in September.
I colori della Pittura - una situazione europea, Istituto Italo-Latino Americano, Roma, 8july-10September (includedDevade, Dolla, Cane, Valensi, Viallat).
06 - Art 76, University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley; Sarah Campbell Bla er Gallery, University of Houston, Texas; Neuberger Museum, State University of New York, 13 November 1976 - 10 January 1977 (Aillaud, Erró, Anne and Patrick Poirier, Rouan, Titus- Carmel, Viallat).
1977
L'avant-garde1960-1976:troisvilles,
trois collections, Musée Cantini, Marseille, February-March; Musée de Peinture
et de Sculpture, Grenoble, April-May; Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne, summer; Musée national d'Art moderne, Centre national d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris, fall (included Bioulès, Buraglio, Cane, Dezeuze, Grand, Jaccard, Meurice, Pagès, Pincemin, Rouan, Valensi, Viallat).
Canvasses without stretchers, Gimpel Gallery, London, October (Dolla, Jaccard, Meurice, Viallat).
Unstretched Surfaces, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,
5 November - 16 December (Dezeuze, Jaccard, Meurice, Pincemin, Bernadette Bour, Burchman, Delaroyère, Christopher Hill, Mac Collum, Plagens, Wudl, Yokomi).
Bilder ohne Bilder, Rheinisches Landes- museum, Bonn, 8 December 1977 -
8 January 1978 (included Cane, Devade)
GROUP EXHIBITION CATALOGS
1966
Impact I, Musée d'Art moderne, Céret. Text by Jacques Lepage. [Bioulès, Buraglio, Rouan, Viallat.]
1968
Jeune Peinture, La Gerbe, Montpellier. Foreword by André-Pierre Arnal. [Arnal, Bioulès, Dezeuze, Viallat.]
1969
Alocco, Dezeuze, Dolla, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Viallat. École spéciale d'architecture, Paris. Essays by Raphaël Monticelli and Arlette Sayag; artists' writings.
Environs 1, public library, Tours. Texts by Bernard Pagès and Raphaël Monticelli. [Dolla, Pagès, Saytour, Viallat.]
La Peinture en question, Musée des Beaux- Arts, Le Havre. [Cane, Dezeuze, Saytour, Viallat.]
1970
Travaux de Dezeuze, Pagès, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat, Foyer International d'Accueil de la Ville, Paris. Texts by Dezeuze and Viallat.
100 Artistes dans la ville, Musée du Travail, Montpellier. Essays by Pierre Gaudibert and Jacques Lepage; artists' writings. [Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Dolla, Pincemin, Saytour, Viallat.]
Support-Surface, Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville, ARC, Paris. Texts by the artists. [Bioulès, Devade, Dezeuze, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat.]
1971
Supports / Surfaces, Art et Prospective,
Cité universitaire, théâtre de la Cité internationale, Paris. Poster-manifesto by Dezeuze, Saytour and Viallat. [Bioulès, Devade, Dezeuze, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat; invited: Arnal, Cane, Dolla, Pincemin.]
1973
La ri essione sulla pittura, Acireale, "7a Rassegna Internazionale d'Arte". Texts by Filiberto Menna, Italo Mussa and Tommaso Trini. [Cane, Devade, Viallat.]
1974
Dolla / Isnard / Viallat , Galleria La Bertesca, Genoa. Essays by Sabine Gowa, Jacques Lepage, Raphaël Monticelli and Claude Viallat.
Dezeuze, Saytour, Viallat, Maison de la Culture, Rennes. Texts by Christian Prigent; collective text by Dezeuze, Saytour and Viallat.
Nouvelle Peinture en France - Pratiques / éories, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne; Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Chambéry; Kunstmuseum, Lucerne; Neue Galerie-Sammlung Ludwig, Aix-la-Chapelle; CAPC,Bordeaux. Preface by Jacques Beau et and Bernard Ceysson; presentation by Georges Boudaille; preface by Catherine Millet; essays by Mathieu Bénézet, Chantal Béret and Bernard Lamarche-Vadel; artists' writings.
1966
Impact I, Musée d'Art moderne, Céret. Text by Jacques Lepage. [Bioulès, Buraglio, Rouan, Viallat.]
1968
Jeune Peinture, La Gerbe, Montpellier. Foreword by André-Pierre Arnal. [Arnal, Bioulès, Dezeuze, Viallat.]
1969
Alocco, Dezeuze, Dolla, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Viallat. École spéciale d'architecture, Paris. Essays by Raphaël Monticelli and Arlette Sayag; artists' writings.
Environs 1, public library, Tours. Texts by Bernard Pagès and Raphaël Monticelli. [Dolla, Pagès, Saytour, Viallat.]
La Peinture en question, Musée des Beaux- Arts, Le Havre. [Cane, Dezeuze, Saytour, Viallat.]
1970
Travaux de Dezeuze, Pagès, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat, Foyer International d'Accueil de la Ville, Paris. Texts by Dezeuze and Viallat.
100 Artistes dans la ville, Musée du Travail, Montpellier. Essays by Pierre Gaudibert and Jacques Lepage; artists' writings. [Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Dolla, Pincemin, Saytour, Viallat.]
Support-Surface, Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville, ARC, Paris. Texts by the artists. [Bioulès, Devade, Dezeuze, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat.]
1971
Supports / Surfaces, Art et Prospective,
Cité universitaire, théâtre de la Cité internationale, Paris. Poster-manifesto by Dezeuze, Saytour and Viallat. [Bioulès, Devade, Dezeuze, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat; invited: Arnal, Cane, Dolla, Pincemin.]
1973
La ri essione sulla pittura, Acireale, "7a Rassegna Internazionale d'Arte". Texts by Filiberto Menna, Italo Mussa and Tommaso Trini. [Cane, Devade, Viallat.]
1974
Dolla / Isnard / Viallat , Galleria La Bertesca, Genoa. Essays by Sabine Gowa, Jacques Lepage, Raphaël Monticelli and Claude Viallat.
Dezeuze, Saytour, Viallat, Maison de la Culture, Rennes. Texts by Christian Prigent; collective text by Dezeuze, Saytour and Viallat.
Nouvelle Peinture en France - Pratiques / éories, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne; Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Chambéry; Kunstmuseum, Lucerne; Neue Galerie-Sammlung Ludwig, Aix-la-Chapelle; CAPC,Bordeaux. Preface by Jacques Beau et and Bernard Ceysson; presentation by Georges Boudaille; preface by Catherine Millet; essays by Mathieu Bénézet, Chantal Béret and Bernard Lamarche-Vadel; artists' writings.
[Bioulès, Dezeuze, Dolla, Jaccard, Meurice, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat.]
1975
12 x 1, Europalia 75, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. Essays by Alfred Pacquement, Marcelin Pleynet; artists' writings. [Cane, Dezeuze, Meurice, Viallat.]
Analytische Malerei, Galleria La Bertesca, Düsseldorf, Genoa, Milan, 1975. Catalog published by Editions Masnata: essays
by Klaus Honnef and Catherine Millet. [Devade, Dolla, Viallat.]
Dolla, Isnard, Jaccard, Pincemin, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat - Peintures sans châssis, Centre national d'Art contemporain, Paris. Essays by Bernard Ceysson, Pontus Hulten, Bernard Lamarche-Vadel, Catherine Masson, Alfred Pacquement; artists' writings.
1976
I colori della Pittura, Istituto Italo-Latino Americano, Roma. Essays by Giulio Carlo Argan and Italo Mussa. [Cane, Devade, Dolla.]
Toni Grand - Bernard Pagès, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Étienne. Essays by Bernard Lamarche-Vadel and Jacques Lepage; interview with Toni Grand by Bernard Ceysson.
06-Art 76, University of California, University Art Museum, Berkeley. Essay by Jean-François de Canchy. [Rouan, Viallat.]
1977
Unstretched Surfaces, LAICA, Los Angeles. Essays by Jean-Luc Bordeaux, Jean-François de Canchy, Pontus Hulten and Alfred Pacquement (in English and French). [Dezeuze, Jaccard, Meurice, Pincemin.]
Bilder ohne Bilder, Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn. Essays by Giulio Carlo Argan, Klaus Honnef and Gabriele Honnef-Harling, Filiberto Menna and Marcelin Pleynet (in German). [Cane, Devade.]
L'Avant-Garde 1960 - 1976 : trois villes, trois collections, Saint-Étienne. [Bioulès, Buraglio, Cane, Dezeuze, Grand, Jaccard, Meurice, Pagès, Pincemin, Rouan, Valensi, Viallat.]
1990
Le Bel Âge - Supports/Surfaces, Chambord. Preface by Pierre-Jean Galdin. [Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Dezeuze, Dolla, Grand, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat.]
1991
Supports/Surfaces, Musée d'Art moderne, Saint-Étienne. Essays by Yves Aupetitallot, Jacques Beau et and Bernard Ceysson. [Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Dolla, Grand, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat.]
1992
Supports/Surfaces, Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Essays by Yves Aupetitallot, Jacques Beau et, Bernard Ceysson, Nehama Guralnik (in Hebrew and English). [Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Dolla, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Viallat.]
1993
Supports/Surfaces, Museum of Modern Art, Saitama. Essays by Jacques Beau et and Bernard Ceysson, Kiyoshi Okada, Hitoshi Morita and Gen Umezu (in Japanese and French). [Arnal, Bioulès, Cane, Devade, Dezeuze, Dolla, Pagès, Pincemin, Saytour, Viallat.]
1998
Les Années Supports-Surfaces dans les collections du Centre Georges Pompidou, éditions du Jeu de Paume - éditions du Centre Pompidou, Paris. Essays by Didier Semin, Marcelin Pleynet, Éric de Chassey, Arnauld Pierre, Stéphanie Jamet, Katy Toma, Daniel Abadie.
BOOKS ABOUT SUPPORTS/SURFACES AND RELATED
Clair, Jean, 1972, Art en France, Une nouvelle génération, Le Chêne, Paris.
Dampérat, Marie-Hélène, 2000, Supports/ Surfaces 1966-1974, Publications de l'Université de Saint-Étienne.
Grinfeder, Marie-Hélène, 1991, Les Années Supports/Surfaces 1965-1990, Herscher, Paris.
Millet, Catherine, 1987, L'Art contemporain en France, Flammarion, Paris.
Minière, Claude, 1985, L'Art en France, Nouvelles éditions françaises, Paris.
Rodgers, Paul, 1982, The subject of painting, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford.
Tronche, Anne, 1973, L'Art actuel en France, André Balland, Paris.
25 Ans d'art en France 1960 - 1985, Larousse, Paris, 1986 .
Supports/Surfaces, conference proceedings under the direction of Éric de Chassey. 24 June 1998, Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, coll. Conférences et colloques, Paris, 2000.
Le Moment Supports/Surfaces, Ceysson Editions d'Art, 2012
Supports/Surfaces A Moment A Movement, Ceysson Editions d'Art, 2014