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20/1/2005

Two exhibitions

Xavier Hufkens, Bruxelles

We kindly invite you to the opening of 2 exhibitions with French artists Bertrand Lavier and Yves Oppenheim.

Bertrand Lavier’s obsession with the distinction between art and reality has led him to make artworks out of everyday objects, all with a rare intelligence and wit. At Xavier Hufkens, the artist will show five “tableaux d’ameublement”, pictures that invite the viewer to rethink the issues linked to the current practice of painting. The “furnishing pictures” are made by repainting the linear motifs on separate sections of a pre-stamped fabric with the usual dense and physical brush strokes that also characterize the artist’s “painted objects”. By means of this visible, pasty superimposition, Bertrand Lavier puts into question the decorative function of the original object and shifts the attention to the specificity and uniqueness of the artistic gesture. Besides the paintings, Lavier will present a sculpture with two overlapped objects: a refrigerator and a design chair. The unexpected stacking of these objects provokes a lucid confrontation between the artistic language of sculpture and the anonymous forms of everyday life.

Yves Oppenheim will present 10 new paintings, which express his continued interest in the organisation of colour on the canvas. With complex and often discordant colour compositions, dynamic line patterns and a surprising layering of forms, he creates paintings that are sensuous, in the first place, but, nevertheless set thought in motion. Yves Oppenheim is not interested in offering a quick and easy understanding of his paintings to the viewer. On the contrary, he prefers to unsettle him or her, in order to transmit a clear awareness of the whole process of constructing and deconstructing that is, to him, the production of a work of art.
The spirit of this work is not to be found in its images or the message it conveys, but in the different processes of blotting, cancelling, and spluttering out that compose the paintings.

Bertrand Lavier is one of the most influential European artists of his generation. His obsession with the distinction between art and reality has led him to make artworks out of everyday objects, all with a rare intelligence and wit. Bertrand Lavier had his work exhibited at numerous international venues, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Gallery in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Venice Biennale. It is the first time he is exhibiting at Xavier Hufkens.
“The work of Lavier is a critical rethinking of the so-called ready-made tradition, the everyday object presented as a work of art. Lavier's work of the early 80s, in which everyday objects were coated with thick brushstrokes of acrylic paint was a major turning point in his development and brought Lavier international fame. Great interest was also stirred by his works of overlapped objects which stemmed from his deliberately provoking contrast between the scholarly language of sculpture and the world of anonymous shapes and objects. The sculpture in the exhibition, made from a refrigerator and a design chair, is a beautiful example of this “bissocation”:

When you handle objects you always teeter on the brink of disaster. There is no advance plan, no rule but you feel that you get to the right thing just before disaster and that the proper balance is just before imbalance. This is a notion that is very important for me. […] If I take a classical work, the freezer on top of the safe, it is no longer an ordinary freezer plus an ordinary safe. What I really have is a low sculpture on a plinth. For me, this is a curious 'bissociation'. I can explain it another way: something is represented but at the same time that something turns into another something completely new. (Bertrand Lavier)”
(excerpt from press release Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, November 2004).
In the 5 Tableaux d’Ameublement (Furnishing Pictures), which form the core of the exhibition, Bertrand Lavier uses strips of furnishing fabric. Their title obviously refers to Erik Satie’s Musique d’Ameublement but even without this knowledge, we see directly that the material used here, with its beautifully coloured design, refers to the decorative arts. The Tableaux d’Ameublement invite the viewer to rethink the issues linked to the current practice of painting. On separate sections of the woven fabric, Lavier repaints the linear motifs with the usual dense and physical brush strokes that also characterize his “painted objects”. By means of this visible, pasty superimposition, Bertrand Lavier puts into question the decorative function of the original object and shifts the attention to the specificity and uniqueness of the artistic gesture. Once more, a “turbulence zone” has been created, where an unexpected encounter between life and art is taking place.

The new paintings of Yves Oppenheim are indisputably abstract with colour playing a pivotal role in the construction of the image.
In his most recent work, Oppenheim is searching for a system to organise colour and to make this process entirely visible on the canvas.

Using a controlled vocabulary of colour shapes, from - spatters and - curves to colour fields and -lines, he tries out complex compositions. In this whole process of constructing and deconstructing, which is, to Oppenheim, the production of a work of art, he lets the notion of “time” clearly prevail upon the notion of “space”.

Yves Oppenheim allows lines and shapes to follow, overlap, scrape and cover each other in jagged and undulating patterns, sharp forms and flowing smudges. He also makes use of the paint itself in a variety of application techniques, going from subtle transparent coats over flat planes to thick paste.
With accurate, powerful brush strokes, he draws the eye over the canvas. He doesn’t always limit himself to the space on the canvas but sometimes circles outside it, even shooting over the edge as if he wants to expand the shapes still further.
Three years ago, Yves Oppenheim moved from Paris to Berlin. The change of location and in particular the change of light has greatly influenced his palette. Whereas before his colours were rather muted, mixed and subtle, now they jump fiercely and poisonously from the canvas, each vying for the viewers’ attention.

Despite discordant compositions and analytical structures, the paintings of Yves Oppenheim remain above all else sensual works; lustful to the eye. Oppenheim’s skills: his self assured approach, strong visual language and the manner in which he grabs your attention and makes you look, think and enjoy, all determine the great quality of his work.

Image: Yves Oppenheim

Xavier Hufkens
rue Saint-Georges 6-8, 1050 Brussels
Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday from noon to 6pm

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