Francisco Sobrino
dal 23/10/2013 al 22/11/2013
Segnalato da
23/10/2013
Francisco Sobrino
Jousse Entreprise, Paris
Sculptures formed by identical planes which capture and evacuate their immediate environment and make it a constitutive part of their appearance.
The works that Francisco Sobrino (born 1932) created as of 1958 are a key episode
in perceptual art, a movement that was the subject of the recent Dynamo exhi-
bition at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais. Sobrino co-founded the GRaV
(Groupe de Recherche d’art Visuel) in Paris in 1960 with a handful of artists such
as François Morellet or Julio le Parc, developing a minimalist visual language
that has the particularity of unfurling in the real time and space of experience.
as the start of a long-term collaboration between the Sobrino archives and the
galerie Philippe Jousse, the group of historical works presented in the gallery on
Rue de Seine and in the Tuileries Gardens as part of the FIaC external programme
focuses on the artist’s “towers”.
These rhythmical and often vertical compositions,
which were prefigured in some of the artist’s paintings and engravings, are sculptures
formed by identical planes – multiple square Plexiglas or metal sheets that slot
together – which capture, filter, dislocate and evacuate their immediate environment
(and its fortuitous variations) and make it a constitutive part of their appearance.
Whether viewed as authoritarian or threatening, furtive or sensual, these razor-sharp
totems melt with their surroundings – spectators included – while they follow in
the tradition of Constantin Brancusi’s Endless Columns, Naum Gabo’s mechanistic
structures and the construction games invented by Charles and Ray eames (House
of Cards, The Toy). Developed from 1960, they come before the modular or com-
binatory systems of Hélio Oiticica, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Robert Smithson,
larry Bell or Sol leWitt, Charlotte Posenenske and Dan Graham, and prefigured
many more recent works by Jeppe Hein, Olafur eliasson or Timo Nasseri.
Highly reductionist as it may be, Sobrino’s art is neither concrete, lofty nor intro-
spective. On the contrary. Inspired by the phenomenology of perception, here
the most basic geometric form is above all the liberated playground of the visible
and a tool to mirror our own gaze. In vivo, each work is a veritable trick on the
eyes that establishes an unsettling relationship with its viewer: are we looking at
the works, or is it the other way around?
Matthieu Poirier is a Doctor (PhD) in art History at Paris-Sorbonne university. In 2013 he organised
the Dynamo. A Century of Light and Movement. 1913–2013 exhibition at the Galeries Nationales
du Grand Palais (with Serge lemoine) and Julio Le Parc. Soleil Froid at the Palais de Tokyo (with
Daria de Beauvais).
Preview Oct 24th from 5pm-10pm
Galerie Philippe Jousse
18 rue de Seine – 75006 Paris
Hours: Mon 2pm-7pm/Tue-Sat 11am-7pm
Free entry