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7/12/2001

Made in Black

Jousse Entreprise, Paris

Twentieth century art revolutionized the way we see black. Hitherto, the symbolic aspect of black was not very gratifying, being the colour of mourning and melancholy, madness and damnation. Lurking in the dark, it was waiting for us to espouse abstraction. In the way avant-garde artists capsized all values, they fondly appropriated this non-colour, and endowed it with a host of new and contradictory meanings. They turned it into the modern colour, if ever there was.

Malevich, Kline, Still, Reinhardt, Rothko, Soulages... Few 20th century artists turned their back on black and its accomplice, white. First and foremost, black was a sign of revolt against a bygone past, an extremely effective clean slate. As it became aware of its power, it soon became the assertion of something radically different, a new open-ended beginning, pregnant with promise beneath its deceptively deadlocked look. Because of it, painting, art in general, and, in a word, life finally no longer had any referent other than themselves. Through black you could attain that supreme beauty of indifference, the way a model on a catwalk surveys everything and looks at no one. Like an elective sign, we are still imbued with the prestige of this youthful confidence, this sovereign and initiatory elegance. Fashion, universal design, and even the food industry have all spread black abroad in their mass-produced lines. These days, nobody can dodge it. We think "black", and we are "black".

"Made in Black" lays no claim to presenting a history of black. But the mid-20th century artists in the show also appropriated it. In his lights, Serge Mouille uses just black, calling it the anti-colour. Georges Jouve blackens many of his ceramics, re-enacting Etruscan techniques. Alexandre Noll carves ebony and Charlotte Perriand produces pieces of furniture made of dark, dense, exotic wood. In his colour chart, Jean Prouvé also includes black.

These pieces--all of them major--enter into dialogue with works by contemporary artists, which are every bit as essential: the infiniteness of a starry sky by Ruff, Weiner's "black mark upon the earth", a Kosuth definition of Black, a James Lee Byars sculpture, for example...

Translated by Simon Pleasance.

Designers : Jean Prouvé, André Borderie, Pierre Guariche, Georges Jouve, Mathieu Matégot, Serge Mouille, Alexandre Noll, Charlotte Perriand, Jean Royère

Artists : James Lee Byars, Serge Comte, Joseph Kosuth, Thomas Ruff, Joep van Lieshout, Lawrence Weiner, Christoph von Weyhe

Open Tuesday-Saturday 11 am-7pm

Jousse Entreprise
34 rue louise weiss - 75013 Paris
téléphone 01 53 82 13 60 - fax 01 53 82 13 63

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