Ceysson & Bénétière

IDEM

The recent works of Claude Viallat reaffirm the coherence of his creative process. Since 1966, the artist has built his own tradition, by asserting and refining, for those who have paid and continue to pay attention, the defining "qualities" of what can be called his "aesthetic." The repetition of a form —each time unique yet always similar to the others— is what defines it; represented on either an unstretched canvas or multiple pieces of canvases stitched together. (…) In recent years, Viallat has been assembling large oblong surfaces of patched-together fabrics in such a way to integrate an empty space opening onto the wall into the work. These pieces seem to engage in a sort of dialogue with some of Frank Stella’s works. 

One could say that flatness is not Viallat’s primary concern. He likes the folds in his canvases—in some museums, they are energetically ironed—as well as the protrusions of the seams, mended stitches, and various patched-up elements scattered on the surface.

This stiacciato-like relief brings painting closer to sculpture, turning it into an object that projects outward from the wall into the viewer’s space. Viallat’s wall-bound approach, particularly in his fabric patchworks, encourages us to consider their relationship to the wall itself, and by extension, to tapestry and the artisanal weaving tradition that was so prominent during his formative years.

These repurposed materials divert their original functions—perhaps even reversing them, somewhat like the inversion of a bicycle wheel. Could such works be considered a kind of readymade? A variation on collage and assemblage? A confusing continuation of the Nouveaux Réalistes? Perhaps. But differently—and perhaps more, or even better, than ready-mades, collages, or assemblages as traditionally understood—Viallat’s work weaves together layers of experience, intertwining histories and lived moments in a complex, interwoven tapestry.

The rejection of the stretcher and the use of a repetitive form—in this respect, Viallat was more captivated by Rodchenko’s example as described by Taraboukine than by Yves Klein—have indeed given rise to a new pictorial genre. As evidence, one need only consider the new modes of producing, conserving, storing, transporting, and presenting artworks that have emerged from this approach, and, of course, the symbolic, choreographed ritual required by their display. Unfolding the canvas on the ground, putting it up on the wall, and securing it for exhibition often takes three people. Likewise: its removal—letting it slide down from the wall, folding it, and storing it away. However, let’s be careful not to overinterpret this ceremony, although it evokes the Christ’s Passion as reenacted in the sacred rites of painting. And even if the capillary absorption of paint into the fabric’s texture recalls the Vera Iconica, the veil with which a pious woman expressed her compassion for Jesus by wiping the sweat from his face, Claude Viallat, as always, refuses to reduce painting to a single meaning, a mere illustration or istoria.

Yet Viallat doesn’t neglect drawing. It is not a virtuoso line drawing like the perfect circle Giotto famously made to impress the Pope’s emissary, but rather one made of the material lines of the fabric itself and its cut-out edges. To this functional drawing Viallat adds another, equally functional: the painted outline, or the sharper or more frayed outline created by the stencil of his recurring form. This unique yet generic form, whose placement and repetition define his work, refutes the hasty critique so often heard: "Viallat? It’s always the same thing." This form works like an ornamental motif, an emblem in a coat of arms. It is an identifying impresa, which motto could be: “Viallat me invenit et fecit” — never to be written on a uniform.

Among his recent works, some exhibit a stark austerity that restrains color, as if a sort of severe melancholy had elevated it to an almost tragic expressiveness, corroding the "Viallat method"—in the sense that the very Cartesian André Lhote ascribed to the term. Is the primacy of drawing over color being questioned once again? A return to the age-old debate that has haunted French artists since Roger de Piles?

Ceysson & Bénétière