Supports/Surfaces

Ce livre  propose un récit du moment Supports/Surfaces tel que Jacques Lepage, théoricien, critique et archivistel'a vécu. Né en 1909, arrivé dans les Alpes Maritimes après la deuxième guerre mondiale, Lepage fut, jusqu'à sa mort en 2002, véritablement l'éminence grise de la scène artistique niçoise.
Cette ouvrage réunit un ensemble précieux de documents savamment présentés par Lepage.  Il y a quarante ans, quand il constitue ce recueil, le moment Supports/Surfaces est à son apogée. Lepage expose pour nous les prémisses de ces jeunes artistes qui désiraient construire à la fois une oeuvre et une théorie. On trouve les tracts et les articles qui témoignent des clivages entre ceux de Tel Quel et ceux du Midi, les textes qui ont bâti la ligne de démarcation autour de la revue Peinture, cahiers théoriques.

The street figures as a primary location for Ben Vautier’s early performances in 1960s Nice. This essay focuses on the potential slippages explored by Ben between the artist and the ‘man in the street’, whose fundamental anonymity was hailed as a paradigmatic feature of the everyday by Maurice Blanchot in 1962. Such theories of the everyday by Blanchot, and by Henri Lefebvre before him, shed new light on Ben’s original experiments in redefining both his role as an artist and the material status of his artworks. Furthermore, theories of the quotidien provide a useful framework for a comparative study of Ben’s practice and other perspectives on the everyday developed by a number of his contemporaries affiliated to three different artist groups who were also active on the Côte d’Azur at the time: Nouveau Réalisme, Fluxus and Supports/Surfaces. In this way, debates concerning the everyday are shown to have touched upon central issues of consumption, leisure and revolution that significantly shaped French art and thought in the 1960s.

As an artist, I was intrigued by the idea of using my paintings to show something real and something hidden simultaneously. I started to think about what would happen if I took a piece of canvas and wrapped it around an object and only painted the exposed parts. When unfolded, it would become a portrait of the object fragmented into pieces; the actual folds would appear as white space. “Aha, that must be a unique idea,” I thought! Before delving into a new method of work, I decided to learn more about the history of the fold as a method of painting. I turned to French painters Simon Hantaï and André-Pierre Arnal, who, since the sixties, have used the fold as a process in their paintings. In this essay, I will compare two paintings by these artists: Etude, by Simon Hantaï in 1968 (Figure 1), and Dans la vague by André-Pierre Arnal, painted in the same year (Figure 2). At first, these two paintings seem very similar; they share the color blue and folded patterns. However, after giving a close look at the personal backgrounds, the historical contexts, and the intents of the two artists, it is possible to discern very clear difference`s.

Since the important As Painting exhibition held at the Wexner in 2001, there has been a growing reassessment of various currents of French painting that developed in the 1960s and 1970s. Collectives such as Supports/Surfaces and JANAPA have become better understood, as have the formative role of figures such as Simon Hantaï; further to this, well-established artists like Daniel Buren have been rescued from generalizing categories like “conceptual art” and the relevance of his practice as painting has been underscored.  Increasingly evident, too, is the conjunctions between these artists and a diverse conglomeration of intellectual positions—Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, Blanchot’ writings, Althusserian structuralism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and deconstruction—that became central to French “post-war” culture. Whilst these philosophies and theories conditioned developments in Anglo-American art, criticism, and history, the art practices that first engaged those theories remained obscure outside of the Francophone artworld.

This session understands the interrelations between painting and theory in the French scene as a ferment in which not only do painters respond to theoretical developments but those theories are determined by the practices of painting emergent in the period. Influential writings on art by figures such as Hubert Damisch, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Georges Didi-Huberman arguably cannot be fully understood without reference to those practices. Therefore, the hitherto scanty attention paid to French painting compels readdressing. Painting, Discourse thus invites scholars to contribute to overcome this art-historical lacuna. Moreover, it also encourages papers that explore the impact of this theory/painting ferment upon later art practices and theoretical understandings.

We have grown used to a foregone conclusion about the impact of the French uprisings of May 1968 on the field of culture: namely, revolution's collapse and art's return to arthood. In the moment there was no such script. The essay that follows is about a passage through the vicinity, if not of revolution per se, then of its specter.

"Simon Hantaï stands among the most significant figures in art of the later twentieth century. The pliage paintings he began making in 1960 rightly are seen both as a definitive response to the work of Jackson Pollock, and as broadly influential for a number of younger figures, from Daniel Buren to the painters of Support-Surface. But until now, widespread interest in pliage has failed to produce a persuasive historical account of the genesis and development of the medium over time. Nourished by numerous conversations with the artist, and grounded in extensive archival research, Penser la peinture sets the origins of Hantaï’s autograph method in a remarkably rich artistic and intellectual context conditioned by the Surrealist discourse of psychic automatism, the emergence of gestural abstraction, and a broader efflorescence of post-Hegelian thought.

Painter, writer, thinker, Hantaï emerges as a figure profoundly engaged with the central pictorial and philosophic issues of his time.


Originaire de Hongrie, installé dès 1948 à Paris où il est mort en 2008, Simon Hantaï est l’une des figures majeures de l’art de la fin du XXe siècle. Ses tableaux abstraits, réalisés par la méthode de pliage à partit du début des années 1960, sont considérés comme une réponse définitive à l’œuvre de Jackson Pollock, et ont influencé de nombreux artistes français à leurs débuts, de Daniel Buren aux peintres de Supports-Surfaces. Mais jusqu’à présent, l’intérêt très largement partagé accordé aux pliages n’a pas réussi à expliquer de façon convaincante la genèse et le développement dans le temps de cette technique. Molly Warnock a nourri sa réflexion de nombreuses conversations avec Hantaï et l’a fondée sur des recherches approfondies, notamment dans les archives de l’artiste et de la galerie Jean Fournier. Penser la peinture situe les origines de cette méthode autographe dans un contexte artistique et intellectuel d’une richesse exceptionnelle, conditionné par le discours des surréalistes sur l’automatisme psychique, l’émergence de l’abstraction gestuelle et la floraison d’une plus large pensée post-hegélienne.

Peintre, écrivain, penseur, Hantaï apparaît comme un artiste profondément engagé dans les questions centrales de son temps sur la peinture et la philosophie."

For several centuries, the most common Western painting format was a stretched (and primed) canvas. From the end of the sixteenth century until the middle of the twentieth, the canvas by and large remained attached to a wooden frame and preparatory layers were applied. In this article, I examine some of the consequences and possibilities that arise from the absence of one these two components: the stretcher. I look at uses of raw and unbound canvas during the painting process, particularly at the way they changed the position of the artist’s body with regard to the canvas support and tools. The shift between stretched and unstretched modified the painter’s stance (from parallel to the support, to perpendicular or crossed, inducing a downward view) and introduced an awareness of the body and of the support. It modified the relationship between the painter and the canvas, so that the handling of the canvas became a component in painting techniques. I also emphasize that the removal of the stretcher opened up possibilities that continue to foster artistic inquiry.

English abstract of the PhD Thesis titled "From background to foreground. Le carte da parati come opera d’arte dagli anni Sessanta a oggi. I loro presupposti, i temi, le funzioni e i linguaggi di un medium rinnovato". Università degli Studi della Tuscia, Italy, 2015.

Knee joint injuries usually occur in a short time, so analyzing the mechanism and process of this short time can be helpful to prevent similar injuries. This study aimed to determine and compare the reaction time of knee muscles and investigate the effect of knee position and perturbation direction on the reaction time of knee muscles in response to horizontal rotational perturbation applied to lower leg from support surface area. Materials and Methods: A total of 30 healthy women volunteers were received ±35 degrees of horizontal rotational perturbation and speed of 120 degrees per second from the sole while standing on the right leg in four conditions (external versus internal rotation of surface while the knee was in both extension and flexion position). Electromyography of knee muscles (vastus medialis and lateralis, medial and lateral hamstring and medial and lateral gastrocnemius) was measured to study the reaction time. Results: The reaction time of knee muscles during the perturbation was relatively long in this study (124 to 151 ms). It seems that muscles are recruited simultaneously in most conditions except in external rotation perturbation, with extension knee that the internal gastrocnemius muscle had significantly less delay time than the internal hamstring (P<0.05) and external quadriceps (P<0.05). The results show that most of these muscles do not react selectively and dependently on perturbation direction and knee position in response to horizontal rotational perturbation. Conclusion: In this study, little difference was seen in the reaction time of most knee muscles in all conditions. Thus in response to this type of perturbation, the knee muscles showed co-contraction.

Préparation et contribution à l'écriture du livret de l’exposition Mémoires Croisées / Dérives Archivisitiques, groupe Supports/Surfaces, Galerie Colbert de l’INHA, Paris (13/05-18/07/15) et FRAC Bretagne, Rennes (18/09-29/11/15), sous la direction de J.M. Poinsot, A. Kramer et N. Boulouch, Séminaire Actualité de la Recherche en Art Actuel, Archives de la Critique d’Art, Rennes, 2014-2015.

In the aftermath of the events of May–June 1968, collectivity itself became an urgent problem, one that was worked out within the unlikely precincts of painting. Despite its apparent obsolescence and association with individualism, painting became an important arena in which artists struggled for – and with – collectivity. Supports/Surfaces, a group of artists active in France between 1970 and 1972, registered this broad crisis in collectivity, embodying the Maoist militancy of the early 1970s through endless splits and scissions. This essay traces the structure of what is here termed the ‘group‐form’ of the avant‐garde, both within the impersonal approach to painting adopted by Supports/Surfaces and in terms of the performative, mediated public posture by which it telegraphed and narrated its association. It is argued that attending to the specificities of the group‐form illuminates the parallel theorization of the intersection of art and politics under the sign of the avant‐garde during these years.

In 1971, a group of French painters associated with the collective Supports/Surfaces founded the magazine Peinture: cahiers théoriques. With red paper covers and Chinese ideograms throughout, the journal clearly aligned itself with the powerful Maoist current then sweeping through cities across the world. What set the journal apart was its attempt to link the ideals of Mao’s Cultural Revolution to Western abstract painting. Active between 1967 and 1972, Supports/Surfaces was a loosely knit collective of twelve artists based in Paris and the south of France who produced works that deconstructed painting’s traditional material binaries. Inspired by the cultural upheaval at the end of the sixties, they sought to redefine abstract painting as a socially embedded revolutionary practice in which artistic labor was understood to be both material and political. The group’s work and writing offer an important example for how abstract painting could still be politicized in a post-68 world – a time when painting had largely lost its currency among young artists. Ignored outside of France until recently, Supports/Surfaces has found a new audience among young abstract painters working today in the United States. To what extent, however, have these young US-based artists incorporated the political undertones of the group’s work, and to what extent have they solely looked to them through a formalist lens? Considering both their work and writings, this paper discusses Supports/Surfaces’ attempt to reclaim the revolutionary power of abstraction through a Maoist framework. It concludes by interrogating the ways younger artists today have engaged with that legacy, particularly in the United States.

Translation of "Statement by the Editorial Committee" (1971), in Selva: A Journal of the History of Art, Issue 1, Painting after 1968 (2019), pp. 87-90. The members of the Peinture, cahiers théoriques editorial committee at the time were Vincent Bioulès, Louis Cane, Marc Devade, and Daniel Dezeuze. Originally published in Peinture, cahiers théoriques 1 (1971), pp. 7-12.