claude rutault - Galerie Perrotin

Transkrypt

cl a u d e r u t a u lt
new york - paris - hong kong
2
foreword by claude rutault
05
interview with hans-ulrich obrist
07
de-finitions/methods
22
glossary
228
index
236
foreword by
claude rutault
1973
first canvas painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung. this moment marked a definitive
rupture in my painting; there was no turning back. i’m up against a wall. in order for the painting to be
the same color as the wall, i must paint. in order for the wall and the canvas to maintain this relationship
across time, they must, at some point or another, be repainted. either the canvas must be repainted
the same color as the wall or the wall be repainted the same color as the canvas or both be repainted
the same color.
inscribed in a space, in space, this painting is also inscribed in time. it is no long subject to it; rather,
time has become the engine of the work. we’re beyond a painting, beyond an object, in an open work,
without end. my paintings have short lives, but they have many of them.
the painting is first written: that’s the de-finition/method. it states, simply and clearly, the goal to be
attained. a stretched canvas painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung. neither form, nor
format, nor color are stipulated. these choices are left up to the person who actualizes the painting,
which in turn, actualizes the text. this person is called the charge-taker. if no charge-taker comes forward,
the work remains a text.
over the years, other possibilities have emerged. the non-painted in 1977. if the wall is not painted, then
neither is the canvas; it remains raw. in 1995, i decided to repaint all my works from before 1973. as
everything was photographed and documented, it wasn’t a matter of denying what i had done before;
rather, it establishes a coherence by extending the idea of repainting across my entire oeuvre. and again
in 1995, i saw the possibility of depainting my old canvases, taking them back as close as possible to
the state of a non-painted canvas. and yet because there are always traces left behind, they are still
clearly paintings. this possibility has only recently been executed.
so today, there are four principle modes of the work:
- the canvas non-painted*, the prerequisite for painting, a non-painted painting.
- the canvas painted, prepared with white.
- the canvas repainted, the same color as the wall.
- the canvas depainted, taken it as far back to the non-painted canvas as possible without ever getting
there. these modes respond to different ways of working and are linked through complex relationships.
unless specified in the text, the dimensions of the paintings vary according to the locations and tastes
of the charge-takers.
each work is accompanied by a document drawn up between the charge-taker and the artist, which is
called a “description”. it documents successive actualizations, i.e. all the different forms that the definition/method has taken. this document constitutes the history of the work, while it also guarantees
the authenticity of the piece for the charge-taker.
because the number of de-finitions/methods has increased since 2000 - when “dé-finitions/méthodes,
le livre 1973-2000” was published -, i have re-numbered them, listing them chronologically and thematically.
2013
claude rutault
* these 4 terms are described further in the glossary p.228
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interview with
hans-ulrich obrist
Hans-Ulrich Obrist: I thought it would be good to start with the “beginning” because I’ve seen lots
of interviews that only start with 1968–69, but there must have been things before that? How did the
first epiphany happen? I thought it would be interesting to structure this around your epiphanies.
When did you have the first epiphany about becoming an artist?
claude rutault: becoming an artist? it goes way back! i must have been 15 or 16. it’s a tricky question. i
really started painting when i went to university. i studied law and political science; in those days, you
did both at the same time. that’s mainly when i started to study painting. i spent my time “experimenting” with painting, with all kinds of techniques, and i went to the movies a lot. before bordeaux, i was
in nantes, from 1960 to 1962. there was a small gallery there, galerie argos, but most of all there was
the museum, which showed a number of abstract artists. in bordeaux i started a string of experiments
in different areas. i didn’t know many people in the art world. i had met a painter from michel ragon’s
group at a friend’s house. he was an abstract artist who introduced me to other artists from the arnaud
gallery on boulevard saint germain in paris, which published the journal “cimaise”. at the time i was
reading journals like “arts”, reviews like “l’œil”, catalogues… whatever i could find.
Who were the artists?
people like luis feito, john-franklin koenig, gérard schneider… and the one who attracted my attention
most, and whom i met several times: martin barré.
It was “Art Informel”?
it was more abstract painting, like abstract landscapes, or gestural painting, like schneider’s. there was
a little geometry too. i met françois morellet, for example. we always got along well, but i never joined
that movement of closed, formal systems.
Yes, I wondered whether Morellet was a hero of yours because very early on, almost as far back as
the 50s, he started to define, not de-finitions/methods exactly, but rules, in a way.
back when i knew him he was mainly the creator and a member of groupe de recherche d’art visuel,
which also included julio le parc, carlos cruz-diez, yvaral, vassarely’s son… but i’ve never done any truly
geometrical painting. in ‘68 i moved onto vaguely figurative painting, which i thought was critical…
In terms of protest and figuration there is Gérard Fromanger in France…
yes, i knew fromanger well… actually, we met in 1968 in a rather funny place! but i soon started to write
texts against political figuration and move on to other topics, like sports, for example, before then
settling on the “marelle” games (hopscotch).
Often with artists there comes a moment: the catalogue raisonné moment. What would you put as
number 1 in a catalogue raisonné?
it would be the photograph of an abstract painting on the left-hand page and on the right-hand page,
the same painting repainted the same colour as the wall. i was interested in hopscotch because there’s
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no real invention to it: it’s a very widespread game. the idea was to create a parallel between the space
of the game and the space of painting, or drawing, rather. in a hopscotch, the inside and the outside
are identical. the game is drawn directly on the pavement. i saw one just this afternoon on a pavement
nearby; it’s always the same form, the same words, but with inevitable differences depending on who
drew it. it has to be redrawn nearly every time you play. so you have the issue of a drawing, repetition,
and words. the hopscotches can be very different. in the first ones i did in 1971 and 1972, the last square
was a small canvas of blue sky with clouds, placed perpendicular to the wall because the sky is the last
square in the game. they were composed of very thick paper rectangles, topped by this small canvas.
they measured 3 to 4 meters. the hopscotch theme kept me busy for three years. i created a whole
program by reading up on the game a lot. so when i did the first canvas the same color as the wall in
1973, [at the atelier] at rue clavel, i kept working on a whole series of “hopscotches” that were in the
pipeline but unfinished. the reason i finished them is because i looked at that canvas the same color as
the wall and said to myself: “what am i going to do with that?” i was very pleased with it, but at the
same time i spent months just thinking and looking. there were three canvases the same color as the
wall in the house: a grey one in the kitchen, a sienna one in the upstairs bedroom, and a pink one in
achille’s bedroom. so the “hopscotches” kept me busy for a while.
That’s fascinating because there were 150 hopscotches - or more. I think we can refer to Deleuze
here and talk about repetition and difference…
yes, absolutely. at the same time, repetition is part of the game itself. after a rainstorm, every hopscotch
drawing on a given pavement is a repetition that follows a basic principle, different and the same. it’s
a universal game; it was seen in china in ancient times, and in certain regions of africa, where it was
used to designate the tribal chief. most of all, it’s a progression from the checkerboard, and many other
games are just a variation. i went on to make the link with the de-finitions/methods, like checkers or
battleships, in which the form of the painting results from the game. in checkers, the canvases are
arranged according to the position of the counters in the last move of the game. a hopscotch game
plays on repetition and difference - differences and indifference - to quote the title of other de-finitions/
methods. in the game of checkers, each player pays to enter. one wins the work, the other makes do
with the fun of having played.
Since you worked on the hopscotches for many years, I was wondering… Raymond Hains always told
me that back in those days, in the 60s, there was a kind of spirit of personified abstraction; are the
hopscotches your personified abstraction?
they gradually became so, yes. the hopscotch pieces progressively became paintings in which the
hopscotch was less apparent - the painting took over. almost always the same format. 100 cm x 170
cm, using a very thick sheet of bristol board, which was easy to cut. some papers were cut up, then
reassembled in a non-orthogonal shape. i was still using grey exclusively. this long series ended very
early in 1974. i had already started developing my work on canvases the same color as the wall. the
problem with these hopscotches was understanding how i got there, explaining to myself how i could
link the interior/exterior relationship in the hopscotch drawing with what the canvas the same color as
the wall was saying. at this point in the new discovery, i didn’t go any further.
So there wasn’t necessarily a break. It was already in the offing…
no, i do think there was a break, because the canvas painted the same color as the wall radically changes
the way painting is produced. the shock was violent, so i didn’t instantly grasp what it was that had
already been suggested in the “hopscotches”. i am still thinking about this moment in my work.
There’s something else I find interesting that we haven’t talked about yet. Because BMPT had been
around a few years before that…
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i didn’t know them well. there were two “terrorist” groups in paris at the time, support/surface and
bmpt. I always kept my distance from both. i soon became friends with niele toroni. i still am. i remember niele saying something strange: “don’t do what i did; don’t lock yourself into a system.” i’ll talk
about it one day. as for buren, [he told me]: “with the canvases the same color as the wall and all the
white walls all over the place, you’ve got yourself in a tight corner.” what followed did not confirm his
prediction.
Something happened in 1973. It was the next epiphany, so to speak. I’m really interested in it because
it took place in the kitchen… Because my first show as a curator took place with an exhibition in a
kitchen in 1991; it was called “World Soup.” And going back 18 years earlier, in 1973, you had your
epiphany at 11 Rue Clavel in the 19th arrondissement of Paris. I wondered if you could tell us about
the day the invention came to you, if you remember it…
yes, i remember it well. i couldn’t tell you the exact date. it was in a new house we had moved to. i was
hurrying to repaint the kitchen because we were expecting the birth of my son a few days later, so the
paint had to be dry! so i worked fast, and i remember that some time around noon, i realized there were
two small canvases in the room, 20 cm x 20 cm. i hadn’t cleaned my paint roller, and i painted one of
the canvases just like that, a bit by chance, without any forethought, really. after lunch i hung it on the
wall. in retrospect, i say to myself: if someone had called me or dropped round at that moment, i might
never have thought of painting that canvas the same color as the wall! at the end of the day, i’m the
only support-surface painter. it took quite a while for me to take it in, understand, and keep going. and
i never suspected that this canvas would spark such developments. the next year i started exploring
the formal relations between the canvas and the wall, but other preoccupations wriggled their way in.
for example, “format limite 3” in 1974 was meant to belong to two different people who had alternate
use of the work.
Did you immediately realize that you wanted to make this experience in your kitchen visible and
public? Your first exhibition was in 1974, at a psychiatrist’s. Can you tell us about that?
a friend of mine recently repainted the apartment of another friend, the lacanian analyst jean clavreul.
she paid a lot of attention to the paint, choosing a red ochre for the walls of a huge room on the ground
floor in order to highlight jean clavreul’s collection of african objects. i told him i would be really interested in showing canvases painted the same color as the walls of this room. he agreed immediately,
even though he knew little about contemporary art. i remember i made four square canvases in different dimensions. there were african objects in the room, masks, a post from a dogon hut. he asked me
if i wanted the objects to be removed. “absolutely not,” i told him. on the contrary, i felt their presence
had an extra appeal. the exhibition faced a painting executed for the space with objects that had lost
their original function. the presence of my paintings heightened the exotic nature of the collection. this
first experience proved to be very useful later. i think that’s when i understood that i couldn’t go back.
another positive aspect was that i had sent out around 100 invitations, and 70 people came.
I was wondering who your influences were at the time? When you did this experiment in 1973, did
you have references?
the references came later. i was a provincial guy, most of what i knew about painting came from journals. there’s no point kidding myself: i was somewhat behind in relation to my parisian colleagues… i
had ellsworth kelly’s albums, several skira albums. i felt very distant from american painting, even though
it had made a great impression on me. it was the hours i spent working on my painting in the garden
of rue clavel that prompted me to study the work of certain artists. work like frank stella’s, the series
of black stripes, the equivalents of carl andre, ad reinhardt… but it was the experiments of people such
as kazimir malevich that fascinated me most, the black quadrilateral, but just as equally the texts; al-
exander rodchenko, the three monochromes in 1921, red, yellow, blue… i was interested in people who
made radical gestures at one point, who pushed things to the edge. rodchenko and his three monochromes; he stopped in 1921 and started again in 1927 with paintings i consider catastrophic! malevich
had pretty much the same path. and pollock, with his return to figures. these paths gave me food for
thought. i told myself to be careful not to fall into this renouncement, maybe. once i finished the “hopscotches”, i did nothing but roll out canvases the same color as the wall, unravel the threads of my
initial choices.
So painting is a daily practice?
yes, it’s a daily occurrence. i write or rewrite my painting every day. i make progress in painting by
writing. “by reading and writing”, julien gracq used to say. i write painting through the de-finitions/
methods. i also sometimes set off down byways, “the kid going grey”, “following”, “distances”…
This is the paradox that I find very interesting, because in interviews and all the literature, you’re
often referred to as one of the main French conceptual artists. And at the same time, you say you
are a painter.
yes, and it’s funny, because right now i’m working on a response to matisse. i’m keeping close to the
works in the book “album verve”, adopting an uncompromising pictorial position and simultaneously
composing a text compiled from things he said about his profession as a painter, in which he stands in
complete opposition to the literary, intellectual side of an artist and says that the only thing he wants
to transmit is the feeling. this is indeed not my line of thinking. yet this book will be an album of paintings. i will paint five double-spreads in each copy. i realized that the only way i progress in my work as
a painter is by writing, and when my painting provokes writing. i have to do it… i couldn’t do it any other
way, and similarly, i always read with a pencil. i have loads of notebooks filled with texts that i can read
over and write again. i have always advised my students to read as many artists’ texts as possible - and
not necessarily the artists they prefer.
At what point did the idea of instructions appear, around 1973?
it came almost immediately, by the actual definition of the process of updating each work. i think it led
me quite naturally in 1995 to repainting all my paintings dated before 1973. a big job.
So the instructions for the first piece in 1973 came retrospectively? You had the epiphany in the
kitchen, but the next one led you to the idea of instructions.
it came during my first exhibition, in 1974, which confirmed the choice made the year before. because
when i started out on this path in march 1973, this canvas could easily have been considered a monochrome in a pictorial genre that was already very cluttered. it was a grey canvas on a grey wall. the
break we were discussing earlier only happened once i made this statement: “a canvas stretched on
stretchers, painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung.” it was doubtless written after the
exhibition in 1975 at the pompidou centre. from then on, it was no longer a matter of a monochrome;
my entire work rests on that sentence. i had no idea where that sentence would take me, that it would
keep me busy all this time, even today. at the same time, unlike many artists of my generation, i think
i was saved by the fact that there was no fixed structure to rigidify the painting. it all started over again
every time, with each update. this strikes me as a key difference because a choice like this produces
an unpredictable work with no end.
It also means there that whoever conducts it has a responsibility.
obviously; that’s why i don’t talk about collectors any more but charge-takers, the people who take
charge of the work. for me the charge-taker is someone who takes part in the painting. without a
charge-taker, my painting remains a text. my goal is to have a painting actualized in order to gauge
what is still possible in painting. you can compare it to a musical score, on the condition that it isn’t
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closed, a participation that goes beyond mere differences in interpretation.
And there’s even a chance that it will survive longer than any other painting…
that’s the idea of a never-ending painting. 300 years from now, you’ll be able to repaint a canvas the
same color as the wall, and it will still be the original. i went for the medium that is most commonly
used these day, which is still the canvas stretched on stretchers… the novelty is elsewhere. people may
say that painting is dead, but when you go to museums, art fairs, and galleries you still see a lot of
paintings. it’s not all you see, but there are still a lot of paintings. and if you look at the works that cost
the most, they’re usually paintings.
One of the exceptions is the work of Félix Gonzalez-Torres.
but that’s what bernard blistène said to me one day: “you should have died earlier after all.” he was
thinking of the artists who die young. a romantic vision of art!
So back to the notion of the history of the temporality of the work. Because time, you say, “is a big
word, but there are two distinct yet interdependent ways to envisage duration in my painting. First,
actualizing, i.e., when a charge-taker carries out the text of the de-finition/method, he or she determines the place, the form, the format, the color, and the arrangement according to the text, which
means they get a lot of freedom. (...) Two actualizations of the same de-finition/method executed
by two different people in two different places at the same time can appear very different. This
freedom appeals to charge-takers because they know that any actualization is limited in duration.
If they want to modify their actualizations, they can do so at any time. (...) The second way to envisage the life of a de-finition/method is to underscore the unlimited quality of actualizations. The
work’s life is limitless.”* Could you tell us about these two temporalities?
the text of the de-finition/method is a set of instructions to execute a painting. its particularity is that
it’s incomplete. the person who actualizes the work has choices to make: always the color and generally the dimensions, the number of canvases, and the hanging. this is how the text exists. it is designed
to keep me at a distance from the work. this is risky painting. i will have surprises, good or bad, but the
work’s evolution, survival, and actuality come at this price. the way i see it, thanks to the text, the work
is not subjected to time; time drives the work. the work will exist in the long term. the painting is always
yet to come, the actualization is just a moment - often very brief. the painting continues from one
actualization to the next, one intermission to the next. the totality of the work exists at every moment.
as soon as one actualization is shown, we wait for the next. because we know that just as time condemns
it, it also means it can come back. there isn’t one work left from the first ten years that is still in its
original state, they have been repainted or exist in other formats. the charge-taker will have changed
the format, the number of canvases, the hanging and, of course, the color. as a result, i have never seen
over half of my paintings. this distance, which comes from the nature of the text and alters my relationship to my own work, appeals to me.
Not even in a photo?
no, not for most of them, not even in a photo. when i’m asked or given the occasion to see them, i’m
delighted to discover them. there’s no refusal or dogmatic stance. and life goes on. i always say that
it’s only ever a light anticipation, for this painting is closely related to death, but perhaps even more so
to life.
Can you talk more about that? About death…
for each de-finition/method, there is a succession of appearances, interspersed by eclipses. there is
night and there is day, which now become one. a sudden death, then a painting again, different and
the same. i wrote in 1994 a little book called “my paintings are short-lived, but have many lives.” it is
indeed about time’s stating a duration whose limit can’t be imagined. a painting that dispenses with
* Excerpt from the interview with Marie-Hélène Breuil in “claude rutault”, éditions Flammarion, Paris. 2010
any need to be restored. read de-finition/method #14 from 1974, “a touch of paint, a touch of youth.”
i’m not worried about my work, i hope that something will be left of it. i named an exhibition at catherine issert’s gallery “behave as if i was dead.” if i was painting paintings today, then yes, i’d be worried.
Poetry has travelled a lot through time. But there’s music too, with its scores and instructions. The
entire repertory of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes is being replayed, for exampled. The Ballets Russes
had a short lifespan of only decades, but a hundred years later, its work is as present as any other.
Or as Ionesco once told me - I met Ionesco when I was 17, in Switzerland. This great writer wanted
to draw, that’s all he wanted to do. And he said to me: “You need to understand that I’m here in Saint
Galle, but I’m in Paris every evening because “The Bald Soprano” has been performed for the past
50 years. You understand… it’s more durable than bronze.”
i insist on this: i’m interested in art that lasts, the artist’s path. for art to survive, it has to have a temporary aspect. for painting to live, paintings must die. this is a condition, not a contradiction. a painting
that can renew itself in the long term, and even follow fashions! over the past few years, several chargetakers have chosen yellow, and not just for practical reasons. yellow is two coats, blue is at least four.
there’s a lot less white than in the first years, color has taken over. very few charge-takers leave their
work white. at some point they opt for another color. it’s obvious however that very few make the most
of the freedom the de-finition/method gives them. again, time will come into play, and is already doing
so for some of them. i recall something paul maenz said during an exhibition at his gallery in cologne.
i had installed the de-finition/method “between us and the eiffel tower”, which involves hanging a
vertical canvas painted the same color as the wall at each end of the wall. the work includes not just
the two paintings but everything that appears on or is hung on the wall, the furniture… i told paul he
could add any elements he chose: “i’m a gallery owner, you’re the artist.” i like being surprised by my
own painting. i don’t need to follow my works step by step. i know some things won’t be respected.
that’s interesting too. the text remains: a fixed point, a platform from which anyone can work, 360°, a
text which I myself go back to often… the charge-taker needs to consider the proposal for what it is,
i.e., to make it his or her own. my painting is designed to elude its author.
So we could say this de-finitions/methods book is something very important, like a catalogue raisonné…
the de-finitions/methods book contains all my work for the period 1973-2000. It’s not a catalogue
raisonné in the normal sense because each text includes the possibility of executing far more works
than an initial reading suggests. it is a book to be re-read. i see new possibilities every time i re-read
one of the texts. it is an open book. it does not contain everything about how the work functions,
however. the description, for example; it’s more than a mere contract; it is part of the work. the description serves to authenticate the work, of course, but it does much more as well. the elements of each
actualization will feature in it, including the address, the type of space, the dimensions of the walls and
the canvas(es), plus a sample of the color of the walls. but no photos. photos would risk locking the
work into a definitive shape. the painting can be photographed, of course, but the description will not
feature any photographs that could serve as a model. the description of the actualization is made by
the charge-taker. there are two copies, which the two parties sign. the main function of this description
is to record the work’s history. obviously, the more actualizations the description features, the more
weight the work has.
So we could say that it’s the catalogue raisonné since 1973. And the catalogue raisonné of your prior
work is a book that will be published one day…
it will indeed be a tome that will list all my works prior to 1973 that have been repainted. there are 400
to 500 works, mainly on paper, but also a number of canvases. all the canvases have been repainted,
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except for some destined to be “depainted.” actually, even the repainted ones can still be depainted.
there are a few un-repainted “hopscotches” left because one day i might confront them with the first
de-finitions/methods. but this is still a hypothesis for now. repainting cannot be reverted. and there are
some 40 works dating before 1973 out in the world somewhere! some have not been located. for others,
very few people are willing to let me repaint them. i have offered them a canvas the same color as the
wall in exchange. now i’m waiting.
So the catalogue raisonné for the period prior to 1973 would be all the “hopscotches” and all the
depainted or repainted paintings. And when did the idea for depainting occur?
i very logically realized that the sentence “a canvas stretched on stretchers…” implies that it would have
to be repainted at some point. in fact, today there are more to be repainted than painted. repainting
has become the primary element in the work. which is why the revised book will no doubt start with
the de-finition/method “repainting”, finalized in 1995 but present in “collection 5” in 1978. “depainting”
comes from “the non-painted”. i used “non-painted” after being asked the question: “what do you do
if the wall is not painted?” the answer was: “i don’t paint the canvas either.” so we have a non-painted
canvas on a non-painted wall. the wall can be brick, stone, wood paneled, whatever… though the wall
and the canvas will no longer be the same color, they share an absence of paint.” depainting: the idea
is to take paintings that have been painted back to their primal state. not just erase the image, but
remove all the paint to go back to the start, the un-primed, non-painted canvas. to subtract. i had a
few done by a professional restorer, (she found it very bizarre to be “destroying” a painting). the result
is quite surprising, because we can see that the painting has been painted and then depainted. traces
and shadows remain. it’s impossible to confuse the non-painted with depainted. i have to confront the
two together very soon. today there are four terms which can be used to explore my painting: “painted,”
“non-painted,” “repainted,” and “depainted.”
So it’s all there. It means you could have more than the de-finitions/methods book featuring 500
works; you could also have another catalogue with all these repainted and depainted paintings. Plus
the 40 canvases that you haven’t managed to get back…
all the pre-1973 paintings were photographed before being repainted. the photos are available. so i am
not disowning what i did; i’m just trying to ensure that there won’t be any finished works, locked in a
moment on my journey as a painter, beyond myself.
There are different books that haven’t been done…
yes, it’s one more thing, a lot of work. the archives of that part are all at the mamco in geneva.
And did “repainting” and “depainting” happen in the same year?
no, not at all. i started working seriously on repainting in the early 1990s. it took me a while to actually do it. it’s no mean task to set about repainting 20 years of work when you know there’s no going
back on it afterwards. today i regret all the paintings that got lost or destroyed when i moved house
or didn’t take care of them properly. you could say i no longer have a fixed corpus, in a way, but at the
same time i have a mountain of works that are still alive, and i’m not talking in images. my works are
permanently yet “to come.” i have 1,500 or 2,000 canvases at my studio. they’re my working capital.
they’re canvases but not (yet) works. taken as a whole, this stock is transit, which has been active since
1983: either canvases that come back from exhibitions, material that has been prepared but not yet
used, or canvases found at flea markets that have been restored or are waiting to be repainted. i have
made the decision to repaint the works that come back from exhibitions white, ready to set off on new
adventures. i want the repainted canvases and papers to revert to the de-finitions/methods. these old
paintings are reintroduced into the cycle of paintings “to come.”
Going forward a little, there’s another point I’m interested in from 1975… Marie-Hélène Breuil (a
researcher) spent a lot of time working with you. But her interview jumps from 1973 to 1980, for
example. And I think it’s interesting to proceed chronologically, to follow your epiphanies “step by
step”, as it were. It makes it easier to understand how you got to these de-finitions/methods. Your
notebooks from 1975 show that they were called “constructions”; they weren’t yet called de-finitions/
methods.
in late 1973 i started exploring a number of simple possibilities: one canvas one wall, the series dependence and independence limits, the format limits, and a touch of paint, a touch of youth series; i quickly
wrote specific instructions, even though these texts didn’t have the de-finition/method title yet. i let
marie-hélène find all that in my archives. for my first show, organized by jean hubert martin at pompidou centre in 1975, which had a large canvas matching matisse’s “the king’s sadness” in the hall, the
invitation did not feature the term de-finition/method. the actual term appeared a little bit later, in
1976–77.
There’s a very interesting aspect of this conversation with Marie-Hélène Breuil, when you say that
these 108 little texts sparked the de-finition/method formula. Can you tell us about these 108 little
texts?
they are the first de-finitions/methods from 1973 to 1979, published in 1981. when i was composing the
book, i realized that it was mainly a formal exploration of the relationship between the wall and the
canvas. that was the start, even though i was in new york in 1978 and wrote the “suicide-paintings”,
whose form evolved every year.
In fact, the exhibition at Galerie Perrotin in 2011 was called “exhibition-suicide,” in reference to that
text. So it all happened in New York: do you remember that day?
it was on park avenue, in a tiny room that some friends had let me use because i didn’t have an apartment at the time. and one day i wrote the six or seven texts, very quickly. initially there were several
forms. take the rectangle: the first year, the rectangle is whole, the second year, the rectangle is divided
by a diagonal, and you take half away, the third year you take away half of the remaining triangle, etc.
… for 10 years. you take away half, and the price is doubled every year. if the canvas is purchased or if
the artist dies, the formal evolution stops, but the canvas will remain the same color as the wall. if the
painting is not “taken in charge” by a charge-taker once the 10 years are up, it no longer exists. only
the text remains.
So it’s the opposite of the idea that a gallery calculates the price of the paintings…
i’ve always enjoyed playing these little games. it was a very successful series. i was asked to make new
ones several times. but there were only ever eight. the series is over.
And why does it take place over nine years?
i varied the length of time. for the circle, for example, i decided on six years. it’s like the principle of
cutting a cake. i realized that in work, loss and gain go together. it’s hard to distance yourself from the
painting. if it’s good, you’re reluctant to repaint it, but that’s life. it doesn’t matter if an actualization is
catastrophic or simply shoddy, it’s always only temporary.
What were some of the catastrophes?
the colors or the arrangement, the fact that the actualization was simply literal, or repetitive. i know,
that’s part of the game.
I’ve been very interested in the “instructions.” The idea of the art of instructions was a key part in
the Fluxus movement, for example. John Cage talks about the “open scores” that Fluxus then embraced. Then there was Yoko Ono with the visionary “Grapefruit Book”, published in 1964. I wanted
to know if you feel you’re working along the same lines as Cage.
i have real admiration for john cage. my students have often pointed out my kinship with john cage!
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notably dominique pasqualini, who was one of the founders of information fiction publicité (ifp). he
has very good judgment. i believe he has moved away from the strictly artistic sphere, which i’m sorry
about.
So music played a role for you?
of course, i’m interested in its abstractness. there is a kind of absolute in music, an abstraction i find
fascinating. there’s also the whole idea of interpretation, which you find with cage’s use of open scores
and chance. i’m looking for the most open work possible. for example, i have always said that i never
choose the color, among other things, and today i go far beyond that.
So you don’t have a favorite color?
no. and even if i did, i wouldn’t tell you! i go by the principle that people live with these works. and since
they have a choice, it’s normal that they should choose a color they like. i’m not denying the pleasure
of the painting - that’s very important to me. it’s a good way for people to project themselves into the
work.
And chance too?
the first chance element is meeting the charge-taker, but it’s also meeting the place. i take places as
they are; i rarely choose them. each place has its own constraints, which you have to play with. galerie
perrotin, for example, has five rooms with the same dimensions and form. that can be seen as a chance
element or a constraint. i think that constraints are one of the key conditions for performing an actualization. constraints make you rethink the text. they can make the work evolve and create the unexpected, even though most of the de-finitions/methods are general enough to fit into any space. these
spaces force you to think about the actualizations in different ways. it’s actually about exploring chance.
Yes. As you say, you are a painter…
yes. who could seriously say i’m not? they could say that i write… which is true, but i write paintings.
Another thing that interests me in your writing and instructions is delegation. In the past few years
there has been a lot of talk of performance and delegation in art again. I’m very curious to ask if you
could talk to us about this definition of the principle of delegation. Because in another interview
with the “Journal des Arts”, you say that it doesn’t actually mean you’re renouncing your responsibility. You feel very responsible. It’s responsible delegation.
delegation can only exist in relation to the painting’s text or past history. anyone who wants to actualize a text will generally know a number of my works and actualize the work in relation to what they
have already seen or read. as long as they respect the text, i can only agree. there are actualized works
out there that i haven’t seen and won’t check. i let the collector execute the work the way he or she
understands it. i can keep track of it anyway through the updates of the description. i can always ask
to see it. what i’m saying is that if i made a mistake in the writing, and the collector steps into a breach
that could contradict my vision of the painting, it’s my fault. but as long as the actualization materializes a possibility in the text, i have no comment.
A year or two after the “suicide-paintings” epiphany, you had another epiphany, in which this notion
of “definition” suddenly struck you as suspect because you say it is stable and definitive. The word
definition has a very definitive side to it. And all things considered, you prefer the short form: “d/m”.
since then, i’ve found a solution. it took me a long time to write “definition” as “de-finition.” to take this
change literally, the hyphen after “de-” eliminates or at least lessens “finition”, i.e., the definitive, frozen
authoritarian nature of the word, which doesn’t suit my work. it goes back to the idea of openness. the
word had been bothering me for a while, as demonstrated in volume 2 of the second edition of the
de-finitions/methods (1985), where i kept both words but crossed out definitions. i’m no fool, i know
what an artist is, but i try to be the least authoritarian possible, or let’s say i try to share my authority
with the charge-taker.
You’re also very interested in Seurat. I saw a Seurat exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay. What links you
to Seurat?
apart from his drawings, i’m interested in his attempt to use michel-eugène chevreul’s formalisation of
simultaneous color contrast. it’s a questionable or even naïve attempt, but it has a flexible application
that appeals to me. is a certain form of naivety necessarily a weakness? there’s another of seurat’s ideas
that appeals to me too: painting the frame the color that’s complementary to the one right next to it
in the painting itself. i can obviously relate to an attempt to continue the painting beyond the canvas.
in reality, seurat was merely enlarging the painting – robert relaunay did the same thing in the “windows”
series. after that, i used small canvases in different shapes but similar formats, painted the same color
as the wall, to draw a rectangle with the exact measurements of the painting “a sunday afternoon on
the island of la grande jatte”. an incomplete frame, with many things missing. we move visually from
the interior to the exterior of the absent painting, echoing the “hopscotches” that we have already
discussed.
So Seurat is one of your masters. But there are others: Poussin, Vermeer, Géricault, Matisse, whom
you’ve mentioned, Mondrian, Rodchenko, and Reinhardt as well. And you say it’s linked to Thomas
Bernhard too.
here’s what i can say: when you want to carry on painting, it’s best to know what you’re talking about.
And you have a special interest in Vermeer, don’t you?
to me one of the most beautiful paintings in the world is vermeer’s “the art of painting”. i had a chance
to spend several days in vienna, preparing an exhibition at the secession. i went to the museum every
day, just like reger in thomas bernhard’s “old masters”, not to the bordone room to see tintoretto’s
“white-bearded man”, but a few rooms further along to see vermeer’s painting. i also have a de-finition/
method on the theme of the studio and vermeer. the title of the book “backgrounds” refers to a painting by gerhard richter. in the de-finition/method “flat painting”, instead of painting a landscape, i put
two sawhorses in front of a landscape and place a raw canvas flat on top of them. the canvas leads the
viewer’s gaze to the landscape. there’s no need to paint.
And it’s linked to Richter’s landscape?
yes, because richter painted a flat landscape like this around here, near chinon, and here we are in oiron,
so very near. it also refers to caspar friedrich’s work, with paul-hervé parsy playing the part of the
character looking into the distance.
And the link to Richter is interesting because Thomas Bernhard is one of Richter’s favorite writers.
Is he one of yours too?
he’s not my favorite, but he’s one of the writers i re-read, like karl kraus before him, another austrian.
Talking of writing and literature, I wanted to know a bit more on this topic because there are lots of
links with writers. In fact, we could do an interview on this whole aspect one day… But there’s notably
also this idea of stretching a sentence out over 1,000 pages with Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe.
to simplify, let’s say it’s the blanchot generation. there’s also a much less well-known writer called roger
laporte, whom i admire greatly. his work on biography is irreplaceable. all these people have supported
my work. i haven’t worked with them, but reading their texts has often comforted me. plus some of
beckett’s texts, such as “worstward ho”.
And which Laporte texts?
two little books in particular, “moriendo”, a biography that brings writing and living as close together
as can be and always picks up its previous discussion under titles such as “continued,” “continuing,”
and “codicil” until one day you stop writing. the second is “letter to nobody”, the follow-up to “morien16
do”. in it, laporte writes that he wants to get it done before the biography degenerates into dismal
prattle. how not to ask yourself this question when you’re an artist?
So you’ve been inspired by writers. But you haven’t necessarily worked with them. You did a collaboration with Tanguy Viel. It’s very interesting because Tanguy Viel wrote a manual to writing a
novel…
yes, i didn’t know it. i heard about the book once it was done. the mac/val had started a small collection
along those lines. i don’t know if it’s still going on.
So he did the literary equivalent of a de-finition/method?
i don’t think it’s a literary equivalent… i’ll have to read it again. i wrote him a reply that I never sent. we
met at the mac/val for a discussion. it seemed to me we had hardly any interests in common.
Have you worked with any other writers?
no. it’s mostly that generation… certain nouveau roman authors, like robert pinget, “someone, the plough,
the harness”; i often re-read philosophical texts, past or present. yet i’m wary of philosophical discourse
on art. martin heidegger’s book “off the beaten track” was very important for me, not for the first text,
“the origin of the work of art,” but for “why poets?” or the analysis of “nietzche’s word: god is dead”
or “anaximander’s saying.” i read poetry, but since (almost) finishing my work on the série noire [crime
novels], i don’t read crime novels any more, or any novels at all, for that matter.
I still have a few more questions. Are there any major points we have missed?
there are the “participation” works.
And how did you get that idea?
i don’t remember… the first real participation work was written in 1976, de-finition/method #49 “generalized interchangeable”. it involved selling 36 shares of one work to 36 people.
The person becomes the coach.
yes, the person chooses the medium, the form and the dimension and paints the medium the same
color as the wall on which it hangs. it is he, and his conception of the proposal, that make the painting
exist.
For your show at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1983, you invited people active in
the world of art to actualize a de-finition/method of their choice.
“generalized interchangeable” was actualized for the first time at this. It was set up by ghislain molletviéville. so there are 36 charge-takers. each has a notebook featuring the text of the de-finition/method
and the rules by which the work functions, including one that says that no one can own more than one
share. this notebook lists the 36 participants, with their names and addresses, the dimensions of the
wall and the canvas and a color sample. when for one reason or another a charge-taker updates his
painting, he sends the 35 others the new actualization information and a color sample, so each can
update their notebook. the work initially seemed utopian but it works very well, with very few losses.
So the paintings are sold in fragments?
yes, all the paintings are only fragments of a much bigger work.
So in the 1983 case, the list is like a kind of co-ownership.
it is a co-ownership. we hold a general meeting from time to time. the last one was at ghislain molletviéville’s home and 23 charge-takers were present.
I bet this story was a big influence on Philippe Thomas.
well, it’s not for me to say… he was my assistant for the exhibition in 1983.
Did you know him in his early student years?
in 1980 or 1981. at the beginning of this interview, we mentioned the house on the rue clavel. it was at
the back of a garden. there was a studio in the front. after discussing it with the students, the studio
was turned into a space for experiments and exhibitions. philippe thomas joined the group a little later.
it included jean-françois brun and dominique pasqualini, whom i had known as students at saint charles
(university of paris I), brigitte de cosmi, an architect, catherine lagarde, who worked in sound at radio
nova, didier vermeiren was a sporadic member… we worked there for more than two years and held a
number of events and exhibitions: jenny holzer, peter downsbrough, didier vermeiren, philippe thomas,
jean françois brun (in the garden)… the last exhibition was lefevre jean claude.
Apartments still play an important part in your work.
oh yes, of course, the house - because we screened films in the garden in the summertime.
And film has played a large role in your work too; you were talking about Godard…
yes, i love film. when i was a student i used to go the cinema a lot; then there was a whole period when
i didn’t go, for family reasons. these days, i try to go as often as possible. i think seeing a film in a movie
theatre matters. i’m less convinced by film in museums. to me the quality of the seating is part of the
quality of the movie.
The house has been important from the start because you also took part in 1986 in the exhibition
“Chambre d’amis” curated by Jan Hoet. What did you do in “Chambre d’amis”? Could you explain
it to us? It was too early for me, I was too young.
i’d be delighted. i went to ghent to meet people who would be welcoming my work. we talked at length,
i gave them a copy of the first version of the de-finitions/methods with the following instructions: you
will read the whole thing. i propose to write a new de-finition/method for you by taking elements from
three existing de-finitions/methods. two months later they came to paris and presented their project.
i agreed to it. i went to their place to set up the work. it was a wonderful experience. today there is a
de-finition/method called “right of proposal”.
So it’s been recomposed.
yes. above all, it proved that this kind of work was possible, like “generalized interchangeable” a few
years beforehand. i remember that the exhibition was really very stimulating.
Yes. I have one more thing to ask. Do you have any projects you haven’t executed yet? Projects that
were too big, say? Dreams? Utopias? Censored projects? Self-censored projects? Projects lying in
drawers? Projects that are only half-done?
there are things that i’d really like to actualize. TRANSIT, for example, a stock of canvases in all dimensions. a shifting space, the departure point and point of return for exhibitions, plus numerous canvases
that haven’t been used yet. it’s imperative to have easy access for canvases as they come and go, and
to be able to look in from outside. plus the problem of managing it. transit is a place where things are
in transit, it changes all the time. the canvases leave transit white and most of the time come back in
color. so they have to be repainted, prepared in white, ready for new adventures.
And TRANSIT was another epiphany. How did it come to you?
it was triggered after the exhibition “bonjour monsieur manet” at the pompidou centre in 1983. i had
done a short text: “i am like manet: i paint, i have been painting canvases the same color as the wall
since 1973,” and i had assembled all the canvases painted between 1973 and 1979, which corresponded
to the first book of de-finitions/methods. when the stock came back to the studio on the rue clavel, i
realized that it was a work in its own right, a work that followed the logic of what i was undertaking. in
transit. all that was left was to find a space for them.
So it was never executed, so to speak?
yes, the stock was entrusted to the ccc in tours, which was run by alain julien-laferrière from 1993 to
2001, then it was installed in one of bernard tschumi’s “follies” at the parc de la villette. TRANSIT worked.
i had to leave the space in 2007 and haven’t found a new one.
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Are there other unactualized projects? Or public commissions that have been postponed?
artists always have a number of projects they would like to do. but the mere fact that the de-finitions/
methods are written means my works acquire an initial mode of existence, so there is no urgency about
actualizing them. i’m sure that numerous de-finitions/methods won’t be actualized until after my death.
they are designed to avoid what could at first seem to be an obstacle. i have even been asked whether,
after the first canvas painted the same color as the wall, it would have been possible to say that the
de-finitions/methods would not be actualized until after my death. but the question is irrelevant, since
it is too late. however, i have a big problem with AMZ, which is one of my favorite works. i know the
obstacle: you have to read a few pages of text, which is quite unsettling at first for an artistic project
that is actually simple and unfolds logically. it is a work in three parts, A, M and Z. A is the center or the
matrix of the work, made up of 100 raw canvases in different shapes and formats. the canvases are
presented in stacks. once a canvas is taken by a charge-taker, it is hung on and painted the same color
as the wall against which the canvases are stacked. A belongs to the fonds régional d’art contemporain
des pays de la loire at carquefou, near nantes. M is all the canvases taken by a charge-taker in A. becoming the charge-taker of a canvas in A involves reconstructing a replica in a place of your choosing. the
surface of this replica is the same as the canvas from a minus a certain percentage, which is the sum
of two factors: the order in which they are taken by a charge-taker, the first, the second, the third… and
the distance between the place where they are hung and nantes. Z materializes the surface difference
between the canvas a that stayed in a and the corresponding m replica. this materialization takes the
form of papers, following the now common rule: if the wall is white, the paper can be any color except
white, and it must be white if the wall is not. the work exists for a small circle, 20 or so very close friends,
but it’s still confidential.
To make it permanent…
the A part, the stock, is in nantes, the Z part, the papers, is managed by the centre des livres d’artistes
in saint-yrieix-la-perche. these were the cornerstones that i wanted AMZ to develop from.
Rainer-Maria Rilke wrote a lovely little book that is advice to a young artist. What would your advice
to a young artist be?
it’s a difficult question, because you tend to trust your own experience. i have an assistant who wants
to be an artist. i tell him to work and to read, to read books that go far beyond the field of art. art only
exists when it is rooted in its time. AMZ works as a network in which most of the data eludes each individual charge-taker. it’s not unlike the banking system, where i can’t control what happens to my
savings. i use this example because AMZ is very different from “generalized interchangeable”, the first
work with multiple partners. “generalized interchangeable” is a closed-circuit system, 36 partners who
each have a notebook that keeps track of the work’s movements. AMZ is, on the contrary, uncontrollable, open and multiple, impossible to grasp except in a few scattered fragments. it’s not possible to
imagine managing a work like this, which combines space, time, and later, money, without the aid of
computer tools and canvases stretched on stretchers and painted the same color as the wall, for now.
So your advice is to work?
yes, i think so. but in every field: i.e. not just sculpture if you’re a sculptor or painting if you’re a painter.
you have to understand how production is organized in society in general. do we consume production
or produce consumption? look at everything there can be in a century. i get the impression that a lot
of young artists behave as though nothing happened during the 20th century. the 20th century rapidly
became a museum. a few years ago, i saw three malevich exhibitions in three major museums in the
space of a year and a half, and thought it was dangerous for the work, meaning that all that will remain
a few years down the line will be a few spectacular images; “red cavalry” will be preferred to “black
square on a white background”.
Has there been a book on all of your books?
not yet, but the centre des livres d’artistes is planning to publish one; it should happen next year. i have
other book projects, several of which are not exactly de-finitions/methods, but more along the lines of
“lointains”, which i’d like to see in it.
Some are catalogues and others are more artist’s books. I like the one that you can stick things into.
I love the idea of being able to stick things in books. It used to be quite common in art books. So it
could be redone and updated?
it will be redone because i really want it to happen. i’ve already been working on a new edition of definitions/methods for some months now. there is more than 500 so far. i don’t know if they’ll fit in one
volume. in any case, the form is going to change. there’ll be a chronological list, and it will be organized
by theme. the idea of redoing is always present in my work: several de-finitions/methods will be rewritten, corrected or augmented. some of the series will be interspersed with short texts. this book will be
published by christian bernard, who runs the mamco in geneva.
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de-finition/method #2. “painted / non-painted / repainted (‘la place des vosges’,
1974) / depainted (‘les joueurs de boule’, 1969)” 1973/1977/1995
de-finition/method:
the repainted is what connects the painted and the non-painted. there’s not
much difference between the canvas painted the same color as the wall on
which it’s hung and the papers, which can be any color except white if the wall
is white and must be white if the wall is not.
the painted: 1973; the non-painted: 1977. the repainted is the parenthetical
element that confirms what was initiated in 1973, but it’s no rival for that which
was gradually instigated between 1977 and 1987, the non-painted. the nonpainted marked a point of no return, but it is also the place and the moment
where it all starts up again.
if the painted and the non-painted have become the hazy memory of the
previous, sacrificed painting, if the painted and the non-painted again find an
historic justification for their position, for their presence - while misleading
people by being hung on a wall - the non-painted cannot but fail, fail leaning
against a wall or lying on the floor, in an interminable low tide. the nonpainted has become the eternal watchman and last bastion of the impossible
return of the painting.
a final opportunity emerged in 1995 at the same time as the repainted: the
depainting of an earlier work, taking it back as far as possible to the nonpainted canvas. as far as possible because traces of the earlier work will always
remain, and to such a degree that the piece will always still be a painting.
by changing its mode of production, painting regains its foothold in the present
moment. let me repeat: in order for painting to live, paintings must die.
a stretched canvas primed white and leaned against a wall.
a non-painted stretched canvas leaning against the wall to the right of the first
one.
a stretched canvas repainted the same color as the wall, hung right next to the
preceding one.
a stretched canvas, depainted, hung to the right of the repainted canvas.
claude rutault
“la place des vosges”
1974
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claude rutault
“les joueurs de boules”
1969
de-finition/method #4. “painted / repainted (‘la france défigurée’, 1969) /
non-painted” 1973/1995/1977
de-finition/method:
three canvases.
the first is painted the same color as the wall, with one layer of paint. size: 100
x 100 cm (391/2 x 391/2 inches). a new canvas will be used for each actualization.
the second is a painting by claude rutault, “la france dérigurée”, painted in
1969; it is painted over, the same color as the wall. the painting was originally
100 x 100 cm, but was damaged and reframed on a 100 x 97 cm frame.
the third canvas is left non-painted and placed on the floor beside the first
two. size: 100 x 100 cm.
claude rutault “la france
défigurée” 1969
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de-finition/method #6. “painting / depainting (‘le monde’ 1971) / repainting
(untitled 1962)” 1973-1977-2010
de-finition/method :
three canvases, ideally of the same dimensions, are hung next to each other
in a specific order.
the first canvas is painted the same color as the wall.
the second is scraped, i.e. the paint has been taken off to reveal the raw canvas.
the last is repainted the same color as the wall.
the actualization makes the three canvases into a single work. for each installation, the third canvas will be repainted the same color as the wall, and the
first canvas will be a new canvas.
claude rutault “le monde”
1971
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claude rutault sans titre
1962
de-finition/method #490. “the test of painting” 1973-2010
de-finition/methode:
a first canvas painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung is kept as
it is for as long as possible. it will be neither restored nor repainted.
a second canvas, identical to the first, is hung a few centimeters away. this
second canvas, following the rule of 1973, is painted the same color as the wall
on which it’s hung, so, unlike the first canvas, it must be repainted every time
the wall is painted a different color.
this proposition contrasts two ways that painting has of responding to the
passage of time: to do nothing, succumbing to age, or to take the passage of
time into account by modifying itself when its context is modified: repainting.
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de-finition/method #500. “painting in the balance” 2010
a circular non-painted canvas leans against the wall, as vertically as possible.
a big rectangular canvas, painted the same color as the wall, is balanced on
top of the circular one. the lower edge of the rectangle must be perfectly
horizontal. neither of the canvasses is attached to the wall.
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de-finition/method #55. “positive/negative 3” 1975
de-finition/method:
a canvas stretched across standard-format stretchers and cut diagonally,
creating two triangles.
one triangle will be hung in the corner of a wall, and the other hung so that
the hanging reproduces the original format.
work/response to rodchenko’s diagonal, drawn in blue pencil in the catalogue
of the “5 x 5 = 25” exhibition in moscow in 1921.
actualization (selected)
1982 rue clavel, paris - for the catalogue of documenta 7, kassel, germany
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de-finition/method #102. “elements in a spiral” 1976
de-finition/method:
a series of canvases - though other supports can also be used from time to
time - are hung in a spiral. it’s an off-center spiral, and it uncoils until it touches
the edge of the wall. all of its elements are painted the same color as the wall.
although the number of supports is not pre-determined, the spiral that they
create should be readable at a glance. the creation and installation of the spiral
are the charge-taker’s responsibility, and he or she can change the work at will
within the rules given above.
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de-finition/method #555. “cardinal canvases” 2011
de-finition/method:
in a room with four walls, each of which is oriented in a cardinal direction, a
canvas painted the same color as the wall is placed on each wall. the charge
taker has two choices: he or she can either hang a canvas painted the same
color as the wall, as usual, or lay the canvases flat on two sawhorses in front
of each window, in which case, they are left non-painted.
if none of the walls is oriented toward a cardinal point, each canvas will be
fixed vertically by one of its sides and aligned in one of the cardinal directions.
the canvases are painted the same color as the wall against which they’re fixed.
if the canvases are perpendicular to the wall, they are stretched with canvas
on both sides.
if the room is a trapezoid, the canvases will be hung combining the different
rules given above.
many other configurations are possible, and it’s up to the charge-taker to find
the simplest solution... he or she may have to change the space.
36
de-finition/method #522. “turning the page” 2010
de-finition/method:
two contiguous walls painted different colors.
canvas is stretched on both sides of the stretchers; the front is painted the
same color as one of the walls, and the back the color of the other wall.
the canvas is hung in the angle made by the two walls, pivoting on hinges so
that it is always the same color as the wall it’s resting against.
like a page being turned, the canvas can easily be moved into any number of
intermediary positions, all of which belong to the work.
38
de-finition/method #45. “one canvas displaces another 3” 1975
de-finition/method:
starting with a round or square canvas, the canvas increases or decreases at
intervals chosen at the moment of charge-taking. once the form has been
chosen, it will not be changed, thus making the evolution apparent. the canvas
is painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung.
both the initial format and the interval are chosen by the charge-taker and are
based on the possibilities offered by the particular space in which the painting
will unfold. at the end of each interval, the charge-taker chooses either to increase or decrease the canvas, and the color of the wall is changed.
the old canvases are kept but cannot be shown next to the canvas hung on the
wall.
40
de-finition/method #174. “on the wall/on the floor” 1979-2011
de-finition/method:
mixed media piece made of two parts that echo each other. one part is on the
wall, the other on the floor.
on the wall: x stretched canvases painted the same color as the wall on which
they’re hung. on the floor: three-dimensional forms as close to the dimensions
(length and width) of the canvases will be built of the same material as the
floor on which they’re placed. the material may impose limits on their heights.
they should not be painted. their color is that of the material, and therefore
that of the floor.
this is the basic principle of the piece, but modifications should be considered,
so that the piece is not just restricted to the material link between wall & floor,
but instead is open to more complex situations, which will be discussed when
the piece is taken in charge.
actualizations (selected)
1983 arc, musée d’art moderne de la ville de paris
1990 villa arson, nice, france
1992 grenoble museum, france
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de-finition/method #222. “after several years” 2012
de-finition/method:
squares of clear glass are set within a large virtual square standing on one
corner. This virtual square is larger than the wall and is partly identified by the
hanging of the glass squares. the first glass square – the largest – is hung in
the left corner of the virtual square, initiating the virtual form. starting with
this 18 x 18 cm (7 x 7 inches) glass square, which forms one corner of the virtual
square, a series of a 100 squares will be hung. the virtual square takes shape
gradually. the farther you move away from the first glass square the smaller
the squares become – 15 x 15 cm, 12 x 12 cm, 10 x 10 cm, 8 x 8 cm, 6 x 6, 4 x 4
cm (6 x 6 inches, 43/4 x 43/4 inches, 4 x 4 inches, 31/4 x 31/4 inches, 21/2 x 21/2 inches,
11/2 x 11/2 inches) - and the farther apart they are hung, until you reach a contiguous wall.
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de-finition/method #35. “formats at the limit 3” 1974
de-finition/method:
a stretched canvas especially constructed for the actualization. the format
does not need to be regular.
each corner of the canvas must butt up against one of the edges of the wall.
the points of contact are not determined in advance; they’re determined by
the charge-taker, who also chooses the work’s shape and size. the possibilities
are almost infinite. the canvas is painted the same color as the wall.
actualization
1979 studio 308, ps 1, new york
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de-finition/method #51. “delineating the wall” 1975
de-finition/method:
standard formats are used.
the painting is composed of a minimum of three canvases, one in a portrait
format, one in a landscape format, and one in a marine format. it’s possible to
add more, depending on the dimensions and the configuration of the wall. it’s
up to the charge-taker to decide on the arrangement of the canvases.
each canvas is hung as close as possible to the edge of the wall, butted up
against the contiguous wall, the ceiling, or the floor. the canvases must not
touch each other. the orientation of all canvases will be respected - vertical
for portraits, horizontal for the others.
all canvases will be painted the same color as the wall on which they’re hung.
50
de-finition/method #513. “between sky and earth” 2010
de-finition/method:
two canvases of similar dimensions, three times as wide as they are high. one
is hung in the center of the wall with one long side touching the ceiling. the
other is also hung in the center of the wall, but with one long side touching
the floor. both canvases are painted the same color as the wall.
the space between the two canvases, determined by the virtual lines that link
their extremities, is neutralized, which is to say, nothing can be hung there.
however, outside these lines, the charge-taker is free to hang works from his
or her collection.
52
de-finition/method #34. “formats at the limit 2” 1974
de-finition/method:
the smallest canvases possible, their dimensions determined by the width of
the wood used to make the stretchers. the canvases, therefore, could be different sizes; they could go from 7 x 7 cm to 10 x 10 cm (23/4 x 2 3/4 inches to 4
x 4 inches) or larger.
their number cannot be planned in advance; it will be different for each space,
according to their arrangement.
they can be placed on each wall or portion of wall, depending upon the number
of works presented in the space...
the canvases are painted the same color as the wall on which they’re hung.
1976 internationaal cultureel centrum, antwerp, belgium
1976 galerie durand-dessert, paris
1977 internationaler kunstmarkt, cologne, germany
2011 château de la roche guyon, france
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54
de-finition/method #180. “maximum/minimum” 1979
de-finition/method:
paintings on two contiguous walls.
on the smaller wall, the largest painting possible is hung, and on the larger
wall, the smallest standard canvas.
each canvas is painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung.
first actualization
1983 arc, musée d’art moderne de la ville de paris
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de-finition/method #378. “small and large version” 1991
de-finition/method:
two configurations, each one composed of a minimum of five canvases. for
example, two rectangular, one square, one round, and one oval; however, the
canvases for each configuration will be different sizes.
the two configurations will be hung on the same wall, far enough apart to create
a play of perspective.
the charge-taker will compose the work, which is to say, he or she will decide
upon the configuration and the hanging. the twelve canvases will be painted
the same color as the wall on which they’re hung, and the color will be chosen
by the charge-taker.
actualization
2011 galerie perrotin, paris
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de-finition/method #77. “change/invariance 1” 1975
de-finition/method:
an installation of grouped canvases painted the same color as the wall on which
they’re hung. the canvases create a surface relationship with the wall that is
direct and visually obvious.
though of different shapes, the canvases will all be standard formats and similar
in size. the hanging will establish a relational logic between the surface occupied by the canvases and the entirety of the wall. for “change/invariance 1”,
this ratio is 1:4. the actualization can be either horizontal or vertical.
60
de-finition/method #375. “address” 1990
de-finition/method:
this takes place in the room with the largest wall in a site with many rooms.
this largest wall will present the matrix of the work. the wall is covered with as
many canvases as possible painted the same color as it is.
these canvases constitute a stock, a sort of distributed stack, from which
canvases are taken and hung in the other rooms of the site or at other sites,
near or far.
the matrix must be hung for an extended period at a fixed address.
the canvases taken from the stock will, ideally, be hung in a single room or
even on a single wall.
and no matter where they end up, the wall or walls on which they’re hung will
be painted a color other than white, and the rehung canvases will be painted
the same color.
when a canvas is removed from the matrix wall, a small canvas, like the replacement notice in a museum, will be hung in the empty space it leaves behind,
and will be painted the same color as the exiled canvas.
no canvas can be permanently removed from the matrix wall.
actualizations
1992 consortium, dijon, france
1998 pompidou centre, paris
1999 centro andaluz de arte contemporaneo, seville, spain
2012 consortium, dijon, france (permanent)
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62
de-finition/method #136. “re-doubling 4” 2012
de-finition/method:
this painting is a development of the re-doubling series from 1978.
all the canvases are standard formats and painted the same color as the wall
on which they’re hung.
a large single wall is the best space for the actualization.
two sets of identical canvases are superimposed on the wall.
the first set is mounted directly against the wall and covers it completely. some
paintings are hung the usual way, facing out, while others are turned to face
the wall, so that their stretchers are visible.
the canvases of the second series are identical to those of the first, same cloth,
same formats, and again, some paintings are facing the wall, which is to say,
turned to face those of the first set, though they are not necessarily the same
ones.
furthermore, the second series is shifted to the left, so that the paintings overlap
but do not cover each other entirely. because of this shift, some paintings on
the far left of the arrangement are either cut-off or removed.
the de-finition/method results in a double re-doubling, the re-doubling of the
paintings’ arrangement, which, occurs on a single plane.
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de-finition/method #349. “obstacles and defenses, theme 53 of ‘from stack to
stack’” 1989-1990
de-finition/method:
the idea is that one stack or two facing stacks impede movement between two
spaces, so that the viewer has to walk around or over them, and is, therefore,
forced to slow down.
the stack (or stacks) must not imitate an architectural element, piece of furniture, or other work of art in the space.
if two stacks are placed on either side of a door, they must be different. they
will be composed of canvases of various dimensions and will make it hard for
two people to walk past each other.
the canvases can be non-painted or painted.
66
de-finition/method #299. “one stack, one wall, theme 3 of ‘from stack to stack’”
1989-1990
de-finition/method:
stacks of canvases leaning against the walls of an autonomous space, one stack
against each wall. the shapes, the formats, and the number of canvases vary
from stack to stack and from one actualization to another. the stacks form a
whole that is variable but indivisible.
for its first actualization, the work was composed of four stacks set directly on
the floor. other stacks can be added if more walls are added, or taken away if
walls are removed.
a single canvas will be taken from each of the stacks and painted the same
color as the wall on which it’s then hung.
the canvases can be non-painted, primed, or repainted. a stack can be made
from the un-hung paintings in the charge-taker’s collection.
first actualization
1986 museum van hedendaagse kunst, ghent, belgium
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de-finition/method #343. “a cube in my collection, theme 47 of ‘from stack to
stack’” 1989-1990
a cube is only one example; it could be any shape. it is constructed by stacking
identical square canvases exactly on top of each other. the charge-taker chooses
the dimensions of the square. a cube measuring a meter on each side would
require between 40 and 50 canvases, depending upon the thickness of the
stretchers and the canvas that covers them.
this could also be done as a cylinder, in which case, the volume would be
composed of round canvases.
all the canvases in the stack will be painted the same color.
72
de-finition/method #301. “horizontal/vertical, theme 5 of ‘from stack to stack’”
1989-1990
de-finition/method:
two stacks placed directly on the floor, one horizontal stack placed flat, with
a vertical stack leaning up against it. though the stacks are different, all the
canvases in them have the same format, which is a standard one. the stacks
do not contain the same number of canvases.
the canvases have no prior relationship to the space other than the fact that
they’re there together. one of the stacks is composed of non-painted canvases, and the other, of canvases painted any color but that of the walls of the
space.
no canvas will be hung, but one canvas from one of the stacks will be slipped
into the other stack. the color of the painted stack will change with each new
actualization.
74
de-finition/method #353. “stack-mark, theme 57 of ‘from stack to stack’” 19891990
de-finition/method:
a stack of canvases painted white and facing outward is leaned against one of
the walls of a space that has been painted white. one or more canvases are
taken from the stack and hung on one of the other walls, which has been painted
a color. each canvas taken from the stack is replaced in the stack by a small
canvas painted the same color as the wall on which the extracted canvas is
hung.
each stack-mark must be highly visible.
76
de-finition/method #306. “stack/ream, theme 10 of ‘from stack to stack’”
1989-1990
de-finition/method:
two stacks, one of paper placed flat on the floor, the other of canvases placed
vertically, leaning on the papers. two identical volumes. the canvases are nonpainted. the ream of paper is white. standard paper-dimensions determine the
dimensions of the canvases, except when the charge-taker decides otherwise.
the charge-taker can play with numerous variables. there is also a painting
option that goes along with this de-finition/method, involving canvases painted
the same color as the wall. this option requires that as many pieces of paper
be hung as canvases. the rule governing papers applies here: if the wall is white,
the paper can be any color; if not, the paper must be white.
first actualization
78
de-finition/method #74. “transparent papers” 1975
de-finition/method:
two series of sheets of standard tracing paper will be used, one white, the
other colored, and two contiguous walls, the first painted a color, and the other,
painted white. several sheets of paper on each wall will make two identical
figures. on the white wall, sheets of colored tracing paper; on the colored wall,
sheets of white tracing paper.
since tracing paper reacts to heat and humidity, special attention should be
given to their hanging. each sheet should be hung by two pins, one in each
upper corner, so that it hangs freely on the wall.
all actualizations will use standard sheets of paper, so that they are easy to
replace.
1994 asher edelmann foundation, pully, switzerland
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de-finition/method #465. “walk 2” 1995
de-finition/method:
an exhibition space in which canvases are placed on sawhorses. the dimensions
of the canvases are varied, though all are rather large, and their forms are
standard - rectangular, square, round, and oval.
most of the canvases will be painted the same color as the walls of the room.
one wall will be painted a different color. there will also be a few white canvases and others left non-painted.
a series of small canvases painted the same color as the wall is hung on one
wall. its arrangement replicates, in a reduced version, the exact arrangement
of the canvases on the sawhorses. from one actualization to the other everything
can change as long as the instructions detailed here are respected.
actualizations
1995 musée des beaux-arts, brest, france (walk 4)
1997 centre de création contemporaine, tours, france
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2003 musée d’art moderne et contemporain, strasbourg, france
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de-finition/method #196. “monochromes 5” 1994
de-finition/method:
non-painted stretched canvases in any shape and any format. these canvases
are placed randomly on the floor. this work takes up at least one entire room
and does not stop people from coming in or going out.
because they are not protected, the canvases might well be damaged by careless visitors; if they are, they should be replaced by new canvases. the damaged
canvases should be leaned up against a wall, showing that paintings are subject
to wear and tear.
it is a painting that asks visitors to watch their step.
actualizations
1994 musée bourdelle, paris
2002 reykjavik museum, iceland
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de-finition/method #508. “a non-painted canvas puts painting in the shade”
2010
de-finition/method:
“as if a raw canvas wasn’t painting!” it might be better to write: the nonpainted canvas puts “monochromes 5” in the shade - the future will tell.
non-painted canvases in various shapes and sizes are spread around on the
ground, raised up.
the canvases are fairly large and in no particular order or arrangement. they
should occupy the entire room, but with lots of space between them, allowing
easy circulation.
beneath these canvases are other canvases painted various colors - extracts
of monochromes 5. they are initially invisible to the harried visitors, but then,
here and there, viewers notice a painted canvas, and then another, which puts
them on the trail.
the viewer then must step back and look under.
2011 château d’oiron, france
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de-finition/method #450. “painting flattened out” 1993
de-finition/method:
a canvas stretched on a frame, left non-painted and placed on sawhorses. it’s
put in front of a window, at the height of the windowsill. it’s content simply to
direct the viewer’s gaze out toward the landscape.
the canvas and the opening have similar dimensions, but are not required to
be identical. the canvas is the color of the non-painted cloth, whether it’s cotton
or linen.
this state - non-painted canvas - and this position - flat - can open onto a
landscape of countryside or mountains, onto a cityscape or a seascape, onto
the bay of mont saint-michel or onto the cathedral at rouen, no matter what
time of day, in the rain, in the midday sun, or in the evening mist.
2000 villa savoye, poissy, france
2011 château d’oiron, france
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88
de-finition/method #446. “toward a self-portrait of painting” 1993
... 4, 5, or 6 canvases of various shapes, large and medium-sized, painted the
same color as the wall in front of which the work is standing.
the canvases are set up on the floor, supported by structures made of the same
wood as the stretchers and placed behind the canvases like easels, keeping
them parallel to one another and as vertical as possible.
the canvases are arranged in front of a wall. the first is placed so that it is
impossible to walk between the wall and the canvas. the others are slightly
offset from each other, so that they create a dense yet airy mass of overlapping
planes.
their arrangement creates an empty space in the center of the composition, a
vertical or horizontal rectangle open at the top, suggesting the self-portrait of
a missing person, poussin or...
the lighting must not create overly-defined shadows.
90
de-finition/method #228. “portrait of… by manet / rutault” 1986-1994
de-finition/method:
a canvas the same format as manet’s “portrait of zola” (1867-1868), painted
the same color as the wall on which it’s hung. a number of papers, following
the rule governing papers* will reproduce the engravings shown in the background of manet’s painting, and will be placed exactly where they are in manet’s
painting.
placed slightly lower than the papers, a sheet of tracing paper will mark the
absence of zola’s portrait. at a later stage, the tracing paper will be replaced
by a photograph of the charge-taker.
sixty centimeters (23 inches) in front of the canvas, two pairs of hinged canvases will form a folding screen that partially hides this evocation of manet’s
painting. the side of the folding screen facing the wall is painted the same color
as the wall, the side facing the viewer is non-painted.
the painting should be actualized at least once on a wall painted the same
color as the background of manet’s painting.
*when the wall is white, the paper can be painted any color except white; when
the wall is not white, the paper must be painted white.
actualization
92
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de-finition/method #235. “paradise lost” 1998
de-finition/method:
somewhere on a wall, between cranach and gauguin.
around the same time, that of the triumph of painting, and just a few thousand
miles apart, cranach and gauguin paint “adam and eve”. though they agree on
the myth, cranach seems to joke around while gauguin takes a more tragic line.
gauguin hasn’t, really, found paradise.
today’s lost paradise is painting.
four canvases distributed as widely as possible across a wall. two of the canvases are photographic reproductions in black and white of the paradises of
cranach and gauguin, reproduced in their original sizes. two other canvases of
identical shapes and sizes are painted the same color as the wall. dispersed
hanging, completely random.
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de-finition/method #505. “letter to doctor barnes” 2010
de-finition/method:
as a matter of principle, doctor barnes demanded rigorous, symmetrical hangings, often creating unexpected connections. these hangings were punctuated
by objects usually considered foreign to painting - locks, switchplates, silver
pieces... antique furniture, african masks... a mixture of styles, cultures, eras - all
with the didactic goal of offering students confrontation and expansion.
a classic hanging of between 6 and 10 canvases, according to the size of the
wall, hung almost symmetrically with several slight yet perceptible deviations.
these canvases are painted the same color as the wall.
this hanging is regularly interrupted by small canvases painted the same color
as the wall and hung facing the wall, revealing their stretchers.
an element such as those used by doctor barnes, an antique lock, for example,
is hung as if it were a label.
actualization
96
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de-finition/method #226. “a saturday morning on the grande jatte or at porten-bessin” 2010
de-finition/method:
keeping seurat’s painting a “sunday afternoon on the island of the grande jatte”
(1884-1886) in mind, a frame is created around its absence, a frame that could
frame it, should it happen to stop by.
this frame is actually composed of small rectangular, square, round, or oval
canvases of varied sizes. the arrangement of these canvases can change from
actualization to actualization. all the canvases will be painted the same color
as the wall on which they’re hung.
the frame contains a few gaps that allow the gaze to circulate from the inside
to the outside.
actualization
98
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de-finition/method #230. “painting adrift, after géricault” 1986-2013
de-finition/method:
when it was shown at the brest museum in 2007, this work was titled “the raft
of the medusa”; then it became “the shipwreck of painting”. now, as of 2012,
it’s titled “painting adrift”, and this is certainly not its last port of call. the
evolution of the painting follows that of the titles, and vice-versa.
in a rectangular room, a big canvas leans at an angle against a larger wall. the
canvas is not hung, but is placed on the floor, very slanted, in the angle formed
by the large and small walls. one or two slightly smaller canvases are on either
side. all are painted the same color as the wall.
around this disorder, a few canvases, small and medium-sized, are tossed on
the floor around the central figure. they are painted different colors.
on one of the large walls, two large pieces of paper are hung. they conform to
the rule governing papers: colored paper if the wall is white, and white if the
wall is not. from the lower right of each piece of paper, a rectangle of 14 x 22
cm (51/2 x 83/4 inches) has been cut, at the place of, and in place of, the title.
actualization
2007 musée des beaux-arts, brest, france
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de-finition/method #236. “goldfish go painting” 2005
de-finition/method:
a canvas, about 146 x 114 cm (571/2 x 443/4 inches), left white or painted the
same color as the wall in front of which it’s hung. the charge-taker chooses the
color from among those that, for him or her, evoke the work of matisse.
the canvas is hung some fifty centimeters (193/4 inches) in front of the wall. in
the lower right corner, there’s a “caption” in the form of a rectangular cut-out.
through this “caption-window” you can see a cylindrical fishbowl in which three
to five goldfish swim. the fishbowl is placed on a stack of canvases set up on
the floor behind the main canvas.
102
de-finition/method #234. “phew! ... kazimir” 1986-2010
de-finition/method:
a canvas dismantled into two separate and complementary pieces, based on
malevich’s black quadrilateral from 1915, titled “quadrilateral”.
a 80 x 80 cm (31 x 31 inches) canvas is hung, painted the same color as the
wall or non-painted if the wall is not painted. a paper the size of the black
quadrilateral is affixed to the right of the canvas. if the wall is white, the paper
can be any color except white; if it is not white, the paper should be white.
one canvas, one paper. it was a close call.
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de-finition/method #210. “replica or rutault/rodchenko” 1982
de-finition/method:
replica is a work based on three monochromes presented by rodchenko at the
“5 x 5 = 25” show in moscow in 1921.
the work is made of several series of canvases:
1. 3 canvases of the same size as rodchenko’s 64 x 52.5 cm (25 x 203/4 inches)
canvases, a yellow one, a red one, and a blue one. two other series of the same
size, left white, are constructed and kept aside.
2. several other series, always also of three, slightly larger but of the same
shape are also kept aside, either primed in white or left non-painted.
a few ways to present the piece, though not exhaustive, include:
optimal presentation: three painted walls, one yellow, one red, one blue, with
a canvas painted the same color hung on each.
a more concentrated presentation: on a single wall painted one of the three
colors, a canvas painted the same color is hung, while the two other canvases
are stacked or presented side by side, leaning on an adjacent white wall. farther
down the wall, an extra stack of canvases might be leaning.
this painting is in no way nostalgic; quite the contrary. it is an homage to
rodchenko, who, following malevich, arrived at a kind of monochrome that has
been repeated exhaustively ever since. rodchenko’s decision to stop painting
proves that he recognized the importance of his gesture and the limit he had
reached.
replica returns to this gesture at this precise moment in the history of painting,
and takes it one step further, making a painting into an object of the past, thus
opening up new possibilities for painting.
actualizations
1997 institut d’art contemporain, villeurbanne, france
2006 mac/val, vitry-sur-seine, france
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de-finition/method #351. “suspended stack, theme 57 of ‘from stack to stack’”
1989-1990
de-finition/method:
four square canvases of different dimensions are suspended from the ceiling,
one behind the other, the largest the furthest back, and the smallest the furthest
forward. they are hung 1.60 meters (63 inches) from the floor. all are aligned
at their bottom edges. the canvases are 3 cm (1 /4 inches) apart.
the canvases are painted the same color as the wall before which they’re hung.
distance from the wall: so that it’s impossible to slide between the stack and
the wall.
this painting might make one think of albers, and yet the idea came to me while
looking at poussin’s “the ravishing of st. paul” in the louvre.
actualization
108
de-finition/method #219. “mondrian 5” 2011
de-finition/method:
this piece follows the changes that mondrian made to his “new york, boogie
woogie” between 1940 and 1942. the size of the canvas: 95 x 92 cm (37 x 361/4
inches).
in its first state, between 1940 and 1941, the painting was composed of 5 black
vertical and horizontal lines, leaving a large white space in the center of the
canvas. he must have considered it finished because he showed it at the
“american abstract artists” show in new york in february 1941.
additions:
in the fall of 1941, mondrian added three lines of wide red tape. in 1942, for his
show at the valentine gallery in new york, he added thin stripes of colored
paper, 2 blue, 2 red, and 4 yellow, as he did on several other canvases during
this period.
this painting, intended to invoke mondrian’s work, is composed of three parts:
a canvas painted the same color as the wall and turned against the wall. the
frame of this canvas reproduces the black lines of the first state of mondrian’s
work.
then, in a virtual space the size of mondrian’s canvas, papers will be placed
exactly where they were on the canvas to represent the additions of 1941 and
1942. next to these, a stretched canvas measuring 95 x 92 cm will be painted the
same color as the wall.
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de-finition/method #447. “full-length self-portrait” 2011
de-finition/method:
an oval canvas 168 x 110 cm (661/4 x 431/4 inches) is placed 50 cm (193/4 inches)
in front of the wall. the canvas is non-painted. it is connected to the wall by a
fine metal wire attached to its upper half. it is also attached to the floor.
a second oval canvas, 33 x 22 cm (13 x 83/4 inches), is hung by its left side to
the wall 60 cm (231/2 inches) from the floor, and is painted the same color as
the wall.
the large canvas is shown face-out as long as the artist is alive, and will be
turned to face the wall when he dies.
112
de-finition/method #511. “painting-tomb” 2001
de-finition/method:
twelve identical non-painted canvases are stacked in a regular, compact stack,
which can either be leaned against a wall as vertically as possible or left freestanding in the room. the last canvas in the stack is turned around so that its
stretchers are visible.
this last canvas remains vertical as long as the artist is alive. when he dies, the
stack will be laid on the floor in front of the wall, and the last canvas turned to
the side on which the non-painted canvas is stretched.
114
de-finition/method #496. “exhibition-suicide 1” 2010
de-finition/method:
the first year this proposition was actualized (2011) was the year that determined
whether it lived or died. on a strictly pictorial level, this proposition - a stretched
canvas painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung - implicates the
canvas in a history that goes far beyond it.
the canvas is 162 x 114 cm (633/4 x 443/4 inches). a large, irregular shape has
been cut from the top half. it’s during the first show of an actualization that
the piece is in danger because the painting can only be taken in charge during
the show. if on the last day of the show, no charge-taker has come forward, it
will be destroyed that evening.
if it is taken in charge - even at the last minute of the show - it continues to
live, governed by the same principles as the other de-finitions/methods in
terms of changing spaces, changing charge-takers, colors, hangings, neighbors...
actualization
116
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de-finition/method #497. “exhibition-suicide 2” 2010
the canvas of this de-finition/method is the cut-out part from “exhibitionsuicide 1”. this painting functions exactly like “exhibition-suicide 1” except that
it will only be shown on the day of the opening: the canvas must be taken in
charge on the opening night of the show.
whatever happens, it must be taken off the wall after that night; it will then be
sent directly to the charge-taker’s home or will be immediately destroyed.
“exhibition-suicide 1” and “exhibition-suicide 2” are independent; they may
never meet again.
actualization
118
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de-finition/method #144. “painting-suicide 1” 1978
during the first year, the painting is a square canvas measuring 100 x 100 cm
(391/2 x 391/2 inches) cut down by 1/8 of its surface. this reduction, of 1/8 of the
existing surface, is repeated each year until the canvas reaches a dimension of
12.5 x 12.5 cm (5 x 5 inches) on the 24th year.
the work will consist of only one canvas at a time. each year, the new one will
definitively replace the one from the year before.
the progressive reduction of the work will stop in two cases: if the artist dies
or if the work is taken in charge. if either occurs, the work will forever retain
the form it had at that time. however, it will continue to be shown always painted
the same color as the wall on which it’s hung. if by the twenty-fifth year, neither
case has arisen, the work will be destroyed.
as the work evolves, the price will increase by 1/8 every year.
1982-1983 museum für [sub]kultur, berlin, germany
1993 centre de creation contemporaine, tours, france
120
de-finition/method #385. “and now for lot #385…” 1988
a group of 40 canvases, 120 x 120 cm (471/4 x 471/4 inches), painted white and
stacked against a wall, is put up for auction. the process of the sale determines
the work: the auctioneer announces the usual rules of the sale, the beginning
price, and the exact way in which the sale will proceed.
though at the outset, the stack contains 40 canvases, at each bid, one canvas
is taken from the stack. when it gets down to three canvases, which is considered the minimum stack, no more canvases are removed, but the bidding can
still go on. the person offering the highest bid takes the work.
the canvases taken off during the bidding go back to the artist.
if the stack acquired by the charge-taker includes 15 or more canvases, it can
put it up for sale again, following the same procedure.
actualization
2011 auctioned off by françois de ricqlès, christie’s at galerie perrotin, paris
122
de-finition/method #387. “sold/bought” 1989
de-finition/method:
this is a work specifically for an art gallery. the function of a gallery that sells
paintings is to show the works and sell them in order to perpetuate its activity.
until quite recently, at most galleries, the works sold during an exhibition were
marked by a red dot. this de-finition/method proposes to replace the red dots
with round canvases about 7 cm (23/4 inches) in diameter painted the same
color as the wall.
the gallery that acquires the work will take a stock of these small canvases in
charge. each time a work is sold, the gallery owner will place a small canvas
next to it.
the work starts all over again at the beginning of each new exhibition. the small
canvases are not sold with the works that they mark.
these small canvases are both paintings and part of the gallery’s stock. the
gallery owner can resell the work to another gallery that agrees to continue
the project.
124
de-finition/method #449. “im/mobilier” 2010
de-finition/method:
this painting established an explicit relationship between a painting, the furniture (mobilier), and the building (immobilier) in which the painting is housed.
the work is composed of two identical canvases whose price is indexed according to the square-meter price of the building, country, city, neighborhood,
street, or even side of the street where the paintings are actualized. the squaremeter price of the painting will be n times the square-meter price of the
building in which the charge-taker lives, fixed at the moment he or she acquires
the painting.
the two canvases are painted the same color as the wall on which they’re hung;
each is 100 x 100 cm (391/2 x 391/2 inches), and they’re hung close to together.
the surface area of the left canvas is fixed; it’s the baseline canvas. the surface
area of the right canvas will increase or decrease according to the changes in
real estate prices.
these changes could be the result of the charge-taker’s moving, but also of a
renovation or, on the other hand, of the deterioration of or falling prices in the
charge-taker’s neighborhood.
if the square-meter price of local real estate goes up, the canvas gets bigger
proportionally. and it gets smaller if the price goes down. the other canvas
never changes. the two canvases will always be shown together, and if necessary, are repainted so that they are always the same color as the wall.
the resale price will be based on the per-meter price of local real estate in the
area where the new charge-taker lives.
this de-finition/method is conceived so that it can circulate and be actualized
throughout the entire world.
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evolution chart of the real-estate market in paris
de-finition/method #384. “painting blind” 2010
de-finition/method:
return to the 1985 series of de-finitions/methods “checkers”, “battleships”,
“guessing games”. these actualizations are conceived as board games, closer
to the original rules, but the artist, once the game has started, pulls back.
why not invert the proposition? the charge-taker constructs a painting and the
artist has to guess the actualization.
the painting is composed of two canvases, one square and the other round.
for a provisional price x, the charge-taker will be isolated in a specially prepared
room; no one can help him with the actualization. the canvases will already be
painted the same color as the wall, a color chosen by the charge-taker, who
will then proceed to hang them. first he’ll decide on the order of the canvases
- square first, then round, or vice-versa. one of the canvases must be facing
out and the other turned against the wall.
first phase: from the next room, the artist must guess the order of the canvases. if he is wrong, the price of the work is cut in half; if he’s right, the price
doubles.
second phase: the artist must guess whether the first canvas is hung face-out
or against the wall. based on the price fixed at the end of the first phase, if the
artist is wrong, the price is cut in half; if he’s right, the price doubles.
the price of the work cannot be determined until both phases of the game
have been completed. the charge-taker and the artist will be taking the same
risk.
128
de-finition/method #292. “stack at maturity, ef version” 1987
de-finition/method:
the general description of a group of works realized during an exhibition titled
“first paradise” in paris in 1987.
these works will be presented in the form of stacks of stretched canvases either
painted, primed, or left non-painted. the number and the shape can vary with
each group.
the way these are taken in charge is unusual in that there’s a financial incentive
for the charge-taker to leave the stack as it is. the longer the charge-taker waits
to extract one or more canvases and paint them the same color as the wall,
the less he will pay for them. the durations are: 2 years - 5%, 5 years - 10%, 20
years - 25%, 30 years - 50%. after the chosen length of time, the charge-taker
can hang one or more canvases and paint them the same color as the wall. if
he takes more than one, they must be painted different colors, so they must
be hung on different walls.
no group can be divided. the description is kept up to date at each phase of
the work’s development.
130
de-finition/method #397. “divided in three” 1992
de-finition/method:
a diptych made of two canvases of the same shape - square, round, or rectangular - of different sizes but homothetic formats. the dimensions will be decided
at the time of actualization. the two canvases will be shown close to each other
and painted the same color as the wall on which they’re hung.
the artist and an intermediary will set the work’s price.
the charge-taker will decide what portion of the surface of the canvases he or
she will acquire. the canvases will be divided into two unequal parts according
to the portion that the charge-taker has chosen to acquire. in all cases, the
charge-taker must acquire more than 50% of the surface of the canvases.
the transaction between the partners will proceed in the following way: the
charge-taker will pay the artist the amount that corresponds to the surface
acquired. the intermediary will be compensated based on the surface that was
not acquired by the charge-taker.
132
initial actualization
de-finition/method #393. “copies/doubles” 1991
de-finition/method:
the artist completes an initial actualization by arranging a number of canvases
of unusual formats painted the same color as the wall into a complex figure. a
precise description is made containing all the data of this first actualization,
including a sample of the color of the wall and its dimensions.
the charge-taker then continues the actualization by copying it, trying to be
as accurate as possible. a number of financial incentives will encourage accuracy; the price of the work will be reduced for each element faithfully reproduced:
1. same number of canvases as in the first actualization -5%
2. same number of canvases and of the same size as in the first actualization -5%
3. canvases painted the same color as the first actualization -5%
4. same arrangement: -5%
5. identical wall reconstructed: -10%
6. furnishing the room with furniture identical to that in the room of the
original actualization -15%
although such reductions add up, they can also be applied separately; for instance, the charge-taker could recreate the same canvases but not use the
same color as in the first actualization. when the copy is complete, the initial
version is destroyed.
example of a possible copy
134
de-finition/method #140. “painting’s no piece of cake” 1978
de-finition/method:
support: open and variable.
form: a circle cut into six pieces.
dimensions: open and variable.
painting: each piece is painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung.
the painting is composed of two parts.
a. a fixed part: one piece (1/6th) of the circle, which remains the property of
the artist and is hung in his space
b. the five other pieces; the way they’re divided up can vary
if a single person takes the painting in charge, he or she owns 5 pieces.
if two people, one takes on 3 pieces, and the other 2,
if three people, one person has three pieces and each of the others have 1
piece, or two people have 2 pieces and the third has 1 piece.
if four people, one has 2 pieces, and the three others have 1.
if five people, each has 1 piece.
social functioning: circulation of the work: the initial distribution of the painting can change if the charge-taker of one of the pieces changes. both the
decomposition and the recomposition are open.
the fixed part, remaining with the artist, can be seen upon request when one
of the other parts is shown in a public space.
actualizations
1994 L gallery, moscow, russia
1995 mamco, geneva, switzerland
136
de-finition/method #567. “a portfolio of ten stacks” 1994
de-finition/method:
propositions:
1 stack of 3 canvases . . . . . . . . . . 8.000 euros . . . . . . . . 100 x 81 cm.
1 stack of 30 canvases . . . . . . . . . 36.000 euros . . . . . . . . 146 x 114 cm.
(all stated prices are before tax)
given: a portfolio of 10 stacks composed of different numbers of canvases of
different dimensions. these specifics of the work are completely arbitrary. all
the canvases in a given stack are painted the same color. a charge-taker may
repaint them any color he or she wants without violating this rule.
the stacks cannot be divided up.
the charge-taker can choose from a number of arrangements: the stack can
be leaned vertically against a wall of the same color. one canvas can be removed.
if so, the stack must then be turned to face the wall, with its stretchers visible.
the removed canvas is placed vertically on the stack against the wall. if no
canvas is extracted, the stack is presented face-out. once taken in charge, the
stack is autonomous.
138
de-finition/method #499. “stack in common” 2010
de-finition/method:
first the work presents itself as a single stack of 48 canvases in different formats,
all painted white. the 48 canvases will be divided into four sections of 12
canvases each. three of the sections are taken in charge by three different
people. each person uses his canvases following a protocol that they will define
together. the fourth section is stored in a neutral yet public space: a museum,
a foundation...
“stack in common” will be actualized after a meeting of the three partners and
the artist. at the end of this meeting, they will write a text together defining
precisely the possibilities of the work, both for its entirety and for its different
parts. the text must be a consensus. at the end of the meeting, the partners
choose a storage location and decide who gets which section of the work.
partners and the artist discuss the parameters of the presentation of the sections: e.g., should the canvases be stacked or hung? should each section remain
entire or be dispersed? etc. the unused canvases are returned to the storage
space.
the storage space can change if all partners agree to it. each can lend his or
her section for an exhibition, and partners can get together and construct a
collective work. one of them can buy a section from one of the two remaining
partners, but not both sections, as that would put an end to the joint ownership.
140
de-finition/method #354. “AMZ” 1984-1987
de-finition/method:
the work is divided into three parts, A, M, and Z.
A is a fixed group of 100 canvases, each with a different format. they are nonpainted and displayed in stacks in the same space. the 100 canvases serve as
base-line models for 100 replicas. once a canvas is chosen to be replicated, it
is painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung. A is constituted of the
all the canvases that comprise “AMZ” at its beginning.
M is composed of all the replicas of the A canvases that have been taken in
charge, and, as these replicas are actualized wherever the charge-taker chooses,
it is necessarily dispersed. it’s also unstable because the rule controlling the
construction of the m replicas includes a variant linked to the charge-taker’s
life. each m replica reproduces its a model, but in a form reduced according
to two parameters: the distance separating the m from A - the farther from A,
the greater the reduction - and the order in the list of charge-taking - the longer
you wait to buy a part of AMZ, the greater the reduction rate. so, in short, each
time a charge-taker moves, he or she will have to reconstruct the canvas. and
if A is ever moved, all the M canvases will have to be reconstructed. The canvases that compose M are painted the same color as the wall on which they’re
hung.
Z is a fixed and stable collection of 100 papers whose dimensions record the
difference of surface area between each m replica and its model in A. the format
of each paper is homothetic to that of the a and m corresponding canvases.
its color will be determined by that of the wall: if the wall is white, the paper
can be any color other than white; if the wall is not white, the paper must be
white. the Z section is managed by the centre des livres d’artistes, 1 place
attane, 87500, saint-yrieix-la-perche, france
other necessary details of the functioning of this piece are to be found in existing publications on the work.
1987 consortium, dijon, france
1988 frac des pays de loire, abbaye royale de fontevraud, france
2010 frac des pays de loire, carquefou, france
>>
142
de-finition/method #498. “the accursed stack” 2010
de-finition/method:
six stacks of canvases lean against a wall extending from one end to the other.
the spaces between the stacks will vary according to the length of the wall. all
the stacks will be different - the number of canvases, as well as their shapes,
sizes, and compositions. the order of canvases within the stacks can be changed.
the stacks will be primed. each stack will include a colored canvas. the canvases will not be hung on the wall.
sequence of events:
when the work is bought for the first time, the charge-taker will have 6 stacks.
he can put the work wherever he chooses. he is free to change the color of the
colored canvas, but will maintain one colored canvas per stack.
each time the work is sold, a stack is taken out of the work. the new chargetaker choses the stack to be eliminated. this stack will be donated to a museum
that the artist and the charge-taker will select when the work is bought for the
first time.
the second charge-taker only has 5 stacks, the third has 4, the fourth, 3, and
the fifth, 2.
when the work is sold for the fifth time, the charge-taker gives one of his two
stacks to the museum. if he wishes to sell the work, he must find a buyer who
will agree to give this last remaining stack to the museum, thus relinquishing
his purchase.
thanks to him, the stack will no longer be cursed, for the ghostly buyer becomes
the donor that restores the integrity of the work.
a museum label indicating the names of the successive charge-takers becomes
the title of the work.
actualization
146
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de-finition/method #515. “everyone moves their pawns forward” 1984-2010
de-finition/method:
this painting is constructed from two collections. two identical stacks of 25
round canvases of the same format (10 to 20 cm / 4 to 73/4 inches in diameter)
are acquired by two different charge-takers. they each take a stack and install
it among the other works in their collections.
each stack will be presented flat on a shelf. both the shelf and the canvases
will be painted the same color as the wall behind them. during the game, they
will not be repainted.
the game begins when the two stacks are installed. let’s take two chargetakers a and b; the modus operandi is as follows: when a acquires a new work
for his collection, he gives a round canvas to b. but if he sells a work, b gives
him a round canvas. thus, the number of items in each collection (works + round
canvases) remains stable, for a while at least. on the two shelves, the colors
begin to mix.
it’s unlikely that a and b will buy and sell works at the same rate, so it may turn
out that one of them will end up owning all of the other’s round canvases.
managing the work requires strategy.
the game ends when one of the two partners has only one canvas left on his
shelf. he will then paint this canvas the same color as the wall and hang it above
the shelf. the other, who now has 49 canvases, may paint whatever number of
canvases he wishes the same color as the wall and hang them, but he must
keep one canvas on his shelf and keep it in its original state.
actualization
150
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“Farbkreis”, Johannes Itten, 1961
de-finition/method #363. “blocking minority” 1989-1990
de-finition/method:
“blocking minority” suspends the actualization of a de-finition/method or one
of its components - form, color, format - for a determined length of time.
a charge-taker blocks the actualization of a de-finition/method without needing
to acquire it. he deprives himself and everybody else, including the artist, of
the possibility of actualizing the work. this puts the artist at odds with himself
for a certain length of time, as, of course, the “raison d’être” of the de-finition/
method is to actualize a painting.
the blockage can also involve the artist’s activity: it can limit the duration of
an exhibition, exclude a catalogue or a biography, prevent an exhibition in a
certain museum...
that said, the blockee can buy the blockage itself from the blocker. the price
of the blockage, which is always for a limited time, is based upon its extent
and its duration.
152
de-finition/method #121. “collection 14” 1994
de-finition/method:
at the charge-taker’s order, the artist assembles, either definitively (by acquisition) or temporarily (by a loan) works of art all dated from the same year.
the charge-taker decides whether they’ll be paintings or sculptures and decides
how many artists will be represented. the artist chooses the year and the artists.
in addition to reproductions of the chosen works, there will be a document,
considered part of the work, that records the discussion between the partners,
i.e. the charge-taker and the artist.
154
Giacomo Balla “Swifts: Paths of Movement + Dynamic Sequences” 1913
Umberto Boccioni “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space” 1913
Constantin Brancusi “Mademoiselle Pogany I” 1912-1913
Georges Braque “Woman with a Guitar” 1913
Marc Chagall “The betrothed and Eiffel Tower” 1913
Giorgio De Chirico, “The Uncertainty of the Poet” 1913
Robert Delaunay “Circular Shapes, Sun #2” 1912 - 1913
André Derain “Trees on the Banks of the Seine” 1913
Juan Gris “Guitar and Pipe” 1913
Wassily Kandinsky “Composition VI” 1913
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner “English Dance Couple” 1912-1913
Gustav Klimt “The Virgin” 1913
Fernand Léger “Contrast of forms” 1913
Kazimir Malevich “Reaper on Red Background” 1913
Henri Matisse “Still Life with Oranges” 1913
Amedeo Modigliani “The Red Bust” 1913
Piet Mondrian “Tableau No. 2/Composition No. VI” 1913
Edvard Munch “Workers in the Snow” 1913
Francis Picabia “Edtaonisl (Ecclesiastic)” 1913
Pablo Picasso “Bottle of Vieux Marc, Glass, Guitar and Newspaper” 1913
Gino Severini “Train of the Wounded” 1913
de-finition/method:
the acquisition, which is to say the actualization, of the work occurs through
an exchange between the artist and the charge-taker. each year the latter will
give the artist a work from his collection - a canvas or a painting on paper or
other support - the only condition is that it not be one of a series or group, so
that there is no possibility of its being replaced.
in return, the artist will give the charge-taker a canvas, a paper, or some other
support of the same dimensions, which the charge-taker must paint the same
color as the wall on which it’s hung.
the exchange will take place every year. the artist will not choose the work. the
artist and the charge-taker will hang their respective collections as they like
as long as all the exchanged works are hung together.
the description of the work is updated every year at the time of the exchange.
the work is the exchange; no money will change hands.
no date is fixed in advance for the end of these exchanges. the work can
continue after the death of one or both of the parties, being carried on by the
inheritors or by someone designated in advance by a contract annexed to the
description.
actualizations
1983 musée des beaux-arts, dijon, france
1994 musée des beaux-arts, nantes, france
2005 musée bourdelle, paris
>
2007 museo fortuny, venice, italy
2012 capc, museum of contemporary art, bordeaux, france
156
de-finition/method:
an inventory of the works of the collection, made of small canvases lined up
on one or more shelves like library books. when a charge-taker acquires a new
work, he or she paints a new small canvas the same color as the wall and hangs
it as a caption to the new work entering the collection. when the next work is
acquired, the previous small canvas is put away on the shelf, and the process
goes on. the inventory records the colors of the walls on which the collection
is shown.
if the charge-taker sells a work, the corresponding canvas will not be removed
from the shelf; instead, it will be painted black. little by little “collection 20”
becomes autonomous. it could even constitute the sole and last work of the
collection.
158
de-finition/method #191. “painting’s sleepless nights” 1980
de-finition/method:
a glassed-in bookcase constructed to fit all 40 books of the detective novel
imprint “nuits blanches”, 1962-1963.
on the first public presentation, the glass case will not contain the complete
series from the imprint, but only 28 books. the missing ones will be replaced
by 12 canvases measuring 18 x 12 cm (7 x 43/4 inches), i.e., the closest available
format to that of these paperbacks. the twelve canvases will be painted white.
the charge-taker has to hunt down the remaining 12 books at “bouquinistes”
or in second-hand bookshops. when a new book is found, it replaces a canvas
in the glass case. the canvas is thus liberated and is hung on the same wall as
the glass case. it is painted the same color as the wall.
the work is completed once the charge-taker has replaced all the canvases by
the missing books and once all the canvases are hung. at that point, the temporary description is replaced by a definitive one, and is supplemented by an
unpublished text by the artist.
160
de-finition/method #190. “série noire” 1979
de-finition/method:
this de-finition/method works in reference to the popular detective novel series
begun in the 1940s, the “série noire”. the first thing the charge-taker must do
is acquire books from the series whose titles refer to painting. in some cases,
the relation of the book to painting may go beyond the title. the connections
between title and painting may follow any number of different logics and play
out on many and sometimes surprising levels.
first, the charge-taker acquires the first 37 volumes that have something to do
with painting; they should be hardbacks from the early years, taken from
numbers 1 through 413 of the series. these books will be accompanied by 37
canvases of the same dimensions as the book, 18 x 12 cm (7 x 43/4 inches). both
books and canvases will be arranged on shelves built for this purpose. the
canvases, like the wall, are painted black. the charge-taker can, in the early
stages, hang four canvases on the wall.
from then on, the charge-taker will begin a hunt for other titles. and so, to the
role of charge-taker of a painting, he or she will add that of bibliophile. corresponding canvases will be bought as the work progresses. once all the books,
and thus all the canvases, have been brought together, the artist will issue a
description detailing the work entirely. the charge-taker will then own 179
canvases that can be hung in different spaces on black walls, but no more than
half the canvases can be displayed at any one time; the others will remain in
the glassed-in bookcase, visible - and the books, too, will remain grouped
together in this miniature library.
actualization
162
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de-finition/method #237. “tokyo story” 2010
de-finition/method:
eight to twelve thin stacks composed of two to four canvases each are positioned in an exhibition or private space, occupying it entirely.
all the canvases are painted, using a single color for each stack. the only colors
that cannot be used are the colors of the walls.
two canvases of identical format are placed at opposite ends of the longest
wall: the one on the left, when looking at the wall, is non-painted and leans
against the wall.
the one on the right is an old painting re-painted the same color as the wall
and hung 30 cm (12 inches) from the floor.
the painting serves as a reminder of the camera angle in yasujiro ozu’s “tokyo
story”.
actualization
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de-finition/method #483. “painting makes a movie“ 1969-1996
de-finition/method:
the work brings painting and cinema together in the same place at the same
time. it’s composed of a painting by claude rutault repainted the same color
as the wall on which it’s hung and a film based on the image of the painting,
which has been erased. the 113 x 143.5 cm painting (441/2 x 56 inches) is from
1970 and features a map of the middle east. the painting is the subject of a
short black and white film, a single shot several minutes long. the canvas is
painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung. a projector is set up
facing the canvas so that the movie is projected onto it, fitting it exactly. the
film is projected onto the canvas the same color as the wall, which therefore
acts both as a movie screen and as a painting. the film is thus colored by the
painting.
the projector is switched off, the lights slowly come up, and the screen turns
back into a painting: a stretched canvas painted the same color as the wall.
the film is made of several sequences, alternating between cinema and painting, which observe each other over time. the whole work is a hybrid between
a movie screening and a painting exhibition. the color of the wall, and thus the
color of the canvas, can later be changed, changing the color of the film as
well. if the wall is white, the film is in color; if the wall is a color, the film is black
and white.
actualizations
2006 mamco, geneva, switzerland
2013 passage de retz, paris
claude rutault,
sans titre 1970
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de-finition/method #506. “photography is no more than the shadow of painting” 2010
de-finition/method:
a stretched canvas painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung covers
three-quarters of a photograph that is slightly larger than it is.
it’s a photograph of the wall that faces the painting. it can be a wall on which
various paintings are hung or it can offer a view of a building or landscape
seen through a window.
the photograph is in black and white if the wall is painted a color, and in color
if the wall is white.
actualization
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de-finition/method #544. “rehearsal” 1998-2000
de-finition/method:
rehearsal, i.e. devising a pictorial apparatus for looking at and listening to music
while affirming it as painting. this apparatus will never stop evolving because
of all the new experiments happening within it.
the work is entirely made up of non-painted, stretched canvases. they are arranged so that it is impossible to walk through the space as you would in a
normal show. the canvases don’t show anything; the painting constructs a
space, and is named after its content.
the impetus for this work was the recording and rehearsal studio that jean-luc
godard filmed in his 1968 film “one + one”, with the rolling stones rehearsing
“sympathy for the devil”. the studio was composed of vertical surfaces painted
different colors, which created an empty space in the middle of the room. a
few open cells had been constructed against these vertical planes, so that the
musicians could rehearse their parts without being isolated.
in this pictorial setting, tall non-painted canvases construct a space within the
space, punctuated with stacks of sometimes non-painted, sometimes painted
and repainted canvases. a few non-painted canvases can be hung on the higher
partitions. we are in the painting. though this actualization is developed as an
aspect of music, the participants will not have met the musicians beforehand.
painting and music co-exist independently.
this pictorial proposition can be realized using non-painted canvases laid
horizontally across two sawhorses in front of a window that opens onto a
landscape. this is painting facilitating passage. the viewer looks over the painting to see outside.
with rehearsal, we remain inside, but the process is similar: the viewer attends
a concert in and through painting; he or she walks in a pictorial and musical
landscape, among the instruments and the canvases. music unfolds and is
independent from the painting.
as with any piece of music, this pictorial set needs to be reinterpreted on each
new occasion. this is why it does not differ from the de-finitions/methods for
which each actualization must be considered as the rehearsal for a painting
that pulls away as you come to believe…
actualization
2012 le confort moderne, poitiers, france
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de-finition/method 537. “painting with no beginning or end” 2011
de-finition/method:
a minimum of 30 small canvases painted the same color as the wall on which
they’re hung begin at one end and extend all the way to the other in a waving
line that loops at least once.
the canvases - squares, rounds, and ovals - are hung at random intervals. the
sizes of the canvases range from 12 x 21 cm to 33 x 24 cm (43/4 x 81/4 inches to
13 x 91/2 inches).
the loop is not fixed and can vary with each actualization. it plays across the
wall as a section of something much larger. the number of canvases depends
on the length of the wall. on a long wall, two loops can be made. the work can
even extend over several walls. however, one wall must remain untouched, so
that the work remains open. all the canvases are painted the same color as the
wall, some are hung on top of others to outline the shape of the loop.
the loop is interrupted by four small canvases at the top and the bottom of the
wall. they establish a zone of silence whose width can vary from 1/4 to 1/8 of
the length of the loop. inside this space, nothing is hung. these four canvases
are perpendicular to the wall. few canvases manage to escape. there is no final
punctuation mark.
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de-finition/method #528. “prepared painting for a musician” 2010
de-finition/method:
this painting is actualized in several stages. the first stage consists of actualizing a work titled “pictorial score” in the room in which the future concert will
take place. “pictorial score” means a series of signs, in this case, canvases of
various formats: squares, rectangles, circles, ovals, and free forms. all the
canvases are small, painted the same color as the wall, and hung in various and
unexpected positions. some of them should be turned to face the wall. the
charge-taker acquires this pictorial score.
in the second stage, the charge-taker asks a musician to take over from the
painter and to write a musical composition that will replace the painter’s work
on the walls. the pictorial score will be photographed both in black and white
and in color and then taken down from the wall, which will then be repainted
another color. ideally, the composition will develop across several walls, and
photographs will be taken of each wall.
the composition of the score is left entirely up to the musician, and it will be
painted directly onto the wall in any color he or she chooses. this should not
be approached lightly; the musician should work according to his or her normal
habits. the score will be played by musicians who have no other score but that
painted on the wall. the musical score will be accompanied by the photographs
of the pictorial score running like a caption beneath. this musical score, like
the previous pictorial score, will be left on the wall for the length of an exhibition.
the arrangement of the work cannot be decided until all partners, the chargetaker, the painter, and the musician, have discussed it.
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de-finition/method #558. “translations” 2011
de-finition/method:
the sentence “une toile tendue sur châssis peinte de la même couleur que le
mur sur lequel elle est accrochée” will be translated into english as “a stretched
canvas painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung.”
lines of small square and rectangular canvases painted the same color as the
wall on which they’re hung spell out the sentence above. other similar lines
spell out the translation into english. the elements are identical, though their
number and arrangement are, obviously, different.
the movement from one painting to another very similar painting - so similar
that it might be mistaken for the other - is called translation. the translation of
a painting can only be into the same, yet different, painting.
regarded as two paintings, the two almost identical versions have become a
single thing to be looked at and to be read closely.
if the translation is right, both paintings say the same thing in spite of their
slight differences. the painting takes place in that instant of identity and difference. the two pictorial series can be presented in various places, and they can be
owned by different charge-takers.
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de-finition/method 260. “captions/photographs” 2010
de-finition/method:
a number of photographs are mounted on a single wall and each is accompanied by a small 12 x 18 cm canvas (43/4 x 7 inches) painted the same color as
the wall.
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de-finition/method #254. “surrounding the photograph” 1981
de-finition/method:
a photograph is hung on a wall. if the photograph is black and white, the wall
is a color; if the photo is in color, the wall is white.
the photo is surrounded by at least five canvases of standard formats and
painted the same color as the wall. the dimensions of the canvases can vary,
but should be close to that of the photo. both the number of canvases and
their arrangement are left entirely up to the charge-taker. from one actualization to the other, everything can change - the canvases, the color, the arrangement, and even the photograph.
this de-finition/method can also be actualized with two or three photographs
- three at most - hung very close to each other to form a unit. the number of
canvases will then have to be increased so that the idea remains clear.
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de-finition/method #554 “painting as a neighbor” 2009
de-finition/method:
visiting the tapa cloth.
not the nth revisiting of such and such era of western painting but an encounter with other, ancient, and traditional cultures, in this case, aboriginal in nature.
the motifs represented on the tapa cloths are so deeply-rooted and abiding in
painting and drawing that they have surpassed their purely ethnological character - so completely that they are sometimes hung in museums of contemporary art.
in order to continue making paintings for walls, we must move, in a real sense
of the term, from these tapa paintings to an interpretation of and allusion to
their constitutive repetitive shapes.
such an extension/confrontation will use small stretched canvases painted the
same color as the wall on which they’re hung.
these simple shapes could also be used to actualize other de-finitions/methods.
actualizations
2012 museum of old and new art, hobart, tazmania, australia
2013 fondation antoine de galbert, maison rouge, paris
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de-finition/method #541. “please...” 2011
de-finition/method:
a series of non-painted canvases placed flat on the floor the entire length of
the walls of an exhibition space, putting the viewer at a distance from the
works. on these walls, paintings of various sizes are hung, as well as small
drawings; all are labeled. the goal of this proposition is to protect old, fragile
works.
the canvases on the floor replace the usual barriers placed in front of walls to
prevent people from getting too close to the works on the walls. the challenge
for the manager of the proposition is both to protect the works and to offer
the best viewing of the exhibition. the canvases on the floor are present, yet
discrete. the viewer must be able to read the labels easily.
if the walls are not painted white, the canvases must be painted the same color
as the walls.
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de-finition/method #539. “visioguide” 2007
de-finition/method:
at the entrance to a show, either permanent or temporary, in a public or a
private space, a stock of small standard canvases in a marine format, each 10
x 18 cm (4 x 7 inches). these canvases are placed on the entrance desk or on
a shelf. each canvas is painted the color of one of the walls.
a small label on the back of each canvas says:
“don’t listen to what you’re told, just look.”
these canvases will be made available to visitors, who can borrow one to carry
as they view the show. visitors will leave an identification card or passport,
which will be given back to them when they have returned the canvas at the
end of their visit.
this work can be purchased by an art space that organizes shows (a museum
or a gallery); however, visitors cannot purchase the canvases they carry on
their visits, nor any others from the stock.
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de-finition/method #458. “puppets” 1994
de-finition/method:
a minimum of five canvases, painted different colors, hang from the ceiling by
invisible fishing lines or fine wires. the canvases can be painted any color except
the color of the walls of the space in which these puppets are installed.
at least one point of each canvas touches the floor. one point is enough to
ensure that the canvases will not be at right angles to the floor. the canvases
can be more or less vertical or horizontal, but they cannot be flat on the floor.
actualization
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de-finition/method #391. “round or oval nested paintings” 1989
de-finition/method:
a minimum of three canvas, of which only one will be visible. the smallest acts
as a surface on which to hang a larger one, which covers it. this canvas is then
covered by a larger one, and so on, so that in the end, only one canvas can be
seen.
all canvases are painted the same color as the wall on which they’re hung.
this piece works on the principle of the matryoshka, and makes it apparent
that a painting always hides more than it shows. from there to saying that
painting is entirely a matter of obfuscation...
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de-finition/method #379. “battleship” 1985
de-finition/method:
the principle of this work is to construct a painting by playing a game in which
the winner becomes the author of the actualization. the rules of the game are
the de-finition/method. the game relies, above all, on choosing a strategy. the
initial form and arrangement of the work are not determined by aesthetic or
formal considerations, but by the determination to avoid the adversary and
the desire to seize the painting.
two identical grids will be created in two distant rooms of a museum. each
player arranges on his or her grid the same number of boats, represented by
small canvases of different sizes. a judge is placed on each side. the game is
public.
the game unfolds exactly according to the rules of battleship. the game ends
when one of the players has sunk all the other’s ships.
the winner creates a similar grid at home and installs the canvases that remained
when the game ended.
after three years, the winner must put the work back into play; the loser has
the right of first refusal as opponent.
actualization
2006 and 2011 musée des beaux-arts, nantes, france
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de-finition/method #107. “generalized puzzle-painting” 1997-2010
de-finition/method:
a series of irregular shapes that never quite fit together; parts of the wall can
be seen between them. yet they touch at many points. they form a quasipuzzle in which each shape has a well-defined place.
the charge-taker is free to hang them any way he or she wants, and may actualize a single puzzle or arrange its parts into several groups to be shown together in the same space. one part may even be isolated. these shapes are
painted the same color as the wall on which they’re hung.
actualization
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de-finition/method #556. “dream canvases” 2011
de-finition/method:
or a painting for the night.
the ceiling is cluttered with small canvases the color of the ceiling. they’re hung
parallel to the ceiling, close to it, and at slightly different heights. some of them
overlap, and so disappear and reappear with the slightest movement. the
canvases have different formats - rectangular, round, square, a few triangles.
on the floor, two canvases, 20 x 20 cm (73/4 x 73/4 inches), are covered with
several layers of non-painted canvas so that they make a comfortable dream
platform.
just lie on the floor, with or without matting, with your head on the dream
canvases.
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de-finition/method #246. “two paintings” 1981
de-finition/method:
two painted elements: the first is a coffee table, round, incomplete, and yet
still in use. the second is a piece cut out of the table and hung on a wall. the
two parts can be seen at the same time.
the cut-out part is painted the same color as the wall. the charge-taker has the
option of replacing this cut-out piece with a canvas, as long as he or she keeps
the cut-out piece.
the table can be of wood or metal, and can be painted in any way that the
charge-taker would like, as long as it is not the color of the wall.
1983 mary bright showroom, new york
1990 studio 10, villa arson, nice, france
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de-finition/method #287. “mobile double-canvases” 1986
de-finition/method:
two identical canvases, maximum dimension 195 x 60 cm (6.4 feet x 231/2
inches), are fixed back to back, making a pair.
at least three of these pairs of canvases are joined together by hinges. they
are considered paintings. there are several possibilities, and they can be actualized in succession. having no more direct contact with a wall, the canvases
can be left non-painted on both sides. the two faces could also be treated in
different ways: the canvases facing a wall could be painted the same color as
the wall, and those not facing the wall could be left non-painted. or both
canvases, recto and verso, could be painted the color of the wall.
connecting the canvases with hinges allows for a wide range of configurations,
from the widest angle that still allows them to stand freely to completely folded
together, creating a stack.
actualizations
1988 studio 8, villa arson, nice, france
2000 villa savoye, poissy, france
2000 bibliothèque nationale de france, rue de richelieu, paris
2002 atelier brancusi, pompidou centre, paris
2003 reykjavik museum, iceland
2003 astrup fearnley museum of modern art, oslo, norway
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de-finition/method #195. “monochromes 4” 1983-2011
de-finition/method:
camouflage/protection of the charge-taker’s paintings before going on vacation.
the construction of simple slipcovers of primed canvas. the canvas should be
supple linen. each slipcover will have the exact dimensions of the work that it
will cover and must be so tight that there can be no doubt that it’s covering a
painting.
this procedure can be used to cover any painting, be it old, modern, or contemporary.
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de-finition/method #434. “history of a space” 2011
de-finition/method:
the charge-taker saves all the invitations that he or she receives from a gallery
or a museum during a period of time decided upon with the artist. the idea is
to trace the history of a space.
each invitation is replicated twice using drawing paper, once in white and once
in color, so that it can be hung on any wall.*
two groups are formed, one of the invitations and one of their replicas. it’s up
to the charge-taker to come up with a hanging that goes beyond simple chronology. there is no pre-established end to this collection, other than the death
of the charge-taker or the closing of the exhibition space.
*according to the rule governing papers: when the wall is white, the paper can
be any color except white; it must be white if the wall is not.
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de-finition/method #39. “à la carte” 1978
de-finition/method:
1. a support painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung.
2. actualization practical modalities – support, dimensions, shape, color – all
these are left up to the charge-taker.
3. dimensions: canvas and wall.
4. charge taker.
5. address where the painting will be actualized.
6. regrets are possible and must be added to the final description of the piece.
7. under no circumstance can the description be shown beside or in place of
the work.
8. the description is good for three years and can be renewed.
description of a painted work by claude rutault, which each party must keep.
<
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actualizations
1983 actualization by mark hostettler, at arc, musée d’art moderne de la ville
de paris
2011, actualization by vincent broqua and yves jammet
de-finition/method #516. “timeless” 2010
de-finition/method:
at the moment of installation, without premeditation, and depending solely
on his mood, the artist will create an entirely new arrangement of canvases
the canvases of this painting are set, but everything else can change. the
charge-taker agrees to create an arrangement, a hanging, that is as different
as possible from, and even contradictory to, the artist’s own, which is thereby
definitively effaced. the same holds for all following actualizations. in the event
that this de-finition/method is resold, the buyer agrees to respect these limitations.
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de-finition/method #285. “upstream/downstream” 1986-1994
de-finition/method:
1. the first stage in the creation of the work is documentary, and at this stage
the charge-taker will have access to the most comprehensive documentation
on existing de-finitions/methods.
2. next, the charge-taker will be asked to devise a new de-finition/method by
putting elements of existing de-finitions/methods together in an entirely new
way.
3. the new de-finition/method will then be presented to the artist, with one of
the following results:
a. the proposition is in line with the de-finitions/methods, and the chargetaker can actualize the work.
b. the artist considers that modifications are necessary for the charge-taker to
actualize the work: either the charge-taker makes these modifications and
actualizes the work, or he refuses, and the work cannot be attributed to claude
rutault.
given the nature of the work, many nuances exist between these two situations,
and they must be examined with great care.
1986 “chambre d’amis” museum van hedendaagse kunst, ghent, belgium
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de-finition/method #364. “corrections and regrets” 1997
de-finition/method:
no de-finition/method is fixed forever; they all evolve. all claude rutault’s paintings exist only in the form described in the text of their de-finitions/methods.
“corrections and regrets” takes this one step further.
this de-finition/method does not rely directly on a pictorial result. instead, it
acts as a repair mechanism, as the engine of evolution for another de-finition/
method, and comes into play either when a charge-taker wants to change a
de-finition/method that he owns, or when a third party wants to help a chargetaker out.
if a charge-taker wishes to use “corrections and regrets”, he needs to purchase
this present text. he can ask the artist to change or extend - sometimes even
dramatically - a de-finition/method, depending upon the alteration or modification he wants to make. once this text is purchased, the principles it contains
can be used as often as the buyer wants.
“corrections and regrets” becomes a management tool for the corrected definition/method, whose description must from then on include the modifications
and extensions enabled by “corrections and regrets”.
this de-finition/method allows a charge-taker to accommodate unforeseen
developments, to increase the number of partners in a co-charge-taking, etc.
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de-finition/method #588. “collaboration” 2013
de-finition/method:
proposition to be made by claude rutault to a certain number of artists based
on paintings on paper mounted on canvas done before 1973, which is to say,
before the canvases painted the same color as the wall on which they’re hung.
the principle is to transfer these paintings to these artists and have them repaint
them with their own work.
prior to that, each painting will have been photographed in black and white
and in color. one of these photographs will be placed as a caption to the repainted canvas. if the wall on which the canvas is hung is white, the color
photograph will be used; if the wall is a color, the black and white photograph
will be used.
all the repainted paintings will be shown together in an exhibition.
claude rutault will participate in this exhibition, also repainting one of the
canvases from before 1973, and it will also have a caption. each painting will
remain an independent work, a work in collaboration.
claude rutault,
“marelle” 1970
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de-finition/method:
every year the charge-taker of this de-finition/method will choose a painting
from his collection and repaint it the same color as the wall on which it’s hung.
the minimum period of charge-taking is three years. every year, the work’s
description will be updated. every painting will be documented, stating the
artist, date, format... the painting will be photographed, but the photograph
will never be shown next to the repainted painting.
every year, the charge-taker will make a payment on the work. if the work is
taken in charge without a concluding date, it will be considered finished when
the charge-taker dies. if the artist dies first, the charge-taker will contact the
artist’s beneficiaries or executors, so that the work can continue.
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de-finition/method #538. “post-scriptum” 2011
de-finition/method:
this painting is made of 13 small rectangular or square canvases arranged to
write the word “post-scriptum”, which must be decipherable like a picture, e.g.
watteau’s “gersaint’s shopsign” or mondrian’s “pier and ocean IV”.
list of canvases: 8 canvases 15 x 15 cm (6 x 6 inches), 4 canvases 30 x 15 cm
(113/4 x 6 inches), 1 canvas 7,5 x 15 cm (3 x 6 inches).
all canvases are painted the same color as the wall on which they’re hung.
the word takes the painting to the letter and vice-versa. it cannot exist on its
own. it creates a visual link between two other hanging paintings. it both brings
them together and keeps them apart.
“post-scriptum” can make this link between two of claude rutault’s works,
between one of claude rutault’s and one of another artist’s, or between two
works by artists other than claude rutault that are present in the collection.
even simpler, “post-scriptum” can announce the new actualization of a de-finition/method that the charge-taker already owns.
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de-finition/method #114. “stop the colle
de-finition/method:
this proposition establishes a descriptio
the artist each keep a copy. from the d
taker of this proposition agrees to acquir
period.
in return, the artist agrees to rehang the
using various works from the collection. t
nothing new during this interruption of a
will pay the artist a salary.
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ction” 1983
n for a collection; the charge-taker and
ate of the last acquisition, the chargee no new works during a pre-determined
charge-taker’s collection several times, he artist may additionally agree to create
cquisitions; in this case, the charge-taker
glossary
actualization/re-actualization
an actualization is a work put into a visible state at a specific time and place. every actualization of a
de-finition/method is unique and, in practice, each actualized de-finition/method may have to be reactualized at some point because the parameters may change: a new space, a new wall color, etc. this
is not just an obligation; it is also an opportunity, an opportunity to re-read the text and see it in a new
light. the charge-taker’s taste or interests may have changed, and the work in its new actualization may
well be unrecognizable. so much the better: the work is alive. try painting your matisse “red interior”
green - you’ll see; it’ll be great - and it makes a nice change.
charge-taking
the moment that the status of the work changes: it shifts from text to painting. a person doesn’t become
a charge-taker until he or she actualizes the work. once the artist has received all the specifics of the
actualization (address, dimensions of walls and canvases, sample of color used), he will produce the
description. from that moment on, the charge-taker will hold the right to actualize the text, including
the right to modify it on the condition that he or she keep the artist informed. taking a de-finition/
method in charge does not turn the charge-taker into an artist, but into a partner. such a privileged
relationship with the artist has consequences for the functioning of the collection, which is why there
are so many de-finitions/methods titled “collection”. in cases of true charge-taking, charge-takers are
active; they’re not satisfied with simply looking at the work, they must bring it into existence, must
make it evolve, must influence it. a dialogue is created, disagreements occur, which should cause no
worry - on the contrary. and there are degrees of charge-taking, ranging from a passing involvement
to a long-term commitment. no set rules, the line stays open.
complexity
in relation the 1984 de-finition/method “AMZ”: a work vast and open enough to evolve toward a complexity that’s denied to art, though it’s allowed in other fields, even if at times imposed from the outside.
complexity begins in the paradigm of simplicity, in a visual proposition that is clear to everyone: a
stretched canvas painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung. it was on this choice, one of
the simplest i’ve ever made, that all my work has been based. it’s an extremely simple sentence, and i
gave every word of it serious consideration. in 1973, i had no way of knowing that this sentence would
lead me to where i am now. the absolutely radical difference imposed by this sentence, if taken seriously, is that it’s open to a reality of which AMZ is the ideal example. the concept behind the machine
that is AMZ is more than just a matter of taking the first de-finitions/methods to their furthest extremes;
rather, it’s the path that naturally extends from that point of departure. and there are many others; the
latest is depainting. these paths may at some point cross or even fuse, but that’s not necessary or
particularly intended. it was just a small sentence.
context
context is defined from near to far. The nearest is the wall on which the painting will be hung, the place
where it will be actualized, its position in space. the painting can only be seen as such in the space
where it was painted; this is its mode of appearance and of existence. the other contextual parameters,
which most artists shun or ignore most of the time – at least in terms of their consequences – are less
immediate and thus vaster and more complex: it’s a matter of figuring out how to actualize something
in a given space - with whom? (or against whom?), for how long? for a limited or an unlimited length
of time? and in what collection? the context brings us back to the question of complexity; for instance,
the title of the show is part of the work, as much as the colors of the canvases. it’s an art in which every
detail counts, and whose parameters must be reconsidered with each actualization. the issues raised
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are never self-evident. “i have neglected nothing.”
decorative
the word is rarely a compliment, yet painting always has a decorative aspect. and i know what i’m talking
about. what seems to me to characterize the decorative is the use of art as diversion, in order to make
you forget where you are and what you’re doing there, and to make it appeal to everyone. i remember
how the walls of the medical imaging room were decorated at institut gustave roussy in villejuif, a
hospital specializing in cancer treatments. huge tourist posters hung on the beige walls - wide beaches
with palm trees and a blue sea - along with a few reproductions of famous paintings. a work is not
decorative if it has a good reason for being here and a good reason for existing, though that doesn’t
prevent it from being beautiful.
de-finition/method
a de-finition/method states an intended goal. for example, de-finition/method #40 from 1974 “differences and indifferences 1”: systematic use of all available walls, one piece per wall, all square, and all
the same size. the size is determined by the smallest wall: the largest square that it will accommodate,
with the canvas extending to the limits of the wall. the following supports must be used: canvas, wood,
copper, and glass or marble. each element will be painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung,
but the choice of color remains open. the goal is to occupy all the walls. the way that this de-finition/
method should be realized is quite precise, though the thickness of the supports is left open - are they
all the same, or do they differ? all de-finitions/methods include aspects and decisions that are left up
to the charge-taker. the number and degree varies from de-finition/method to de-finition/method.
delegation
letting someone else make the decisions, such as the color of the wall for an actualization or the nature
of the photographs of a work taken for a catalogue. the artist doesn’t dictate a specific color to the
charge-taker because the charge-taker is the one who’ll have to live with it. delegation is contagious.
the charge-taker can himself delegate the whole actualization to a third party. delegating is the opposite of abandoning. in the case of the de-finitions/methods, it constitutes a kind of right of reply. to
delegate is to leave open, to not always have to be right; it’s to listen.
depainting. conception 1995, first actualization 2010
a painting, figurative, abstract, monochrome... hung on a wall that’s painted, non-painted, hung with
cloth, covered with wall paper... is photographed in color and in black and white with very large margins,
so that the surrounding context is apparent.
depainting the painting, which is to say, not only making sure that all subject matter can no longer be
seen, but also that the canvas looks like it did before it was prepared for painting. traces of paint or
primer may remain; depainting is merely the limit.
this depainted canvas can be rehung on any wall.
the restorer should create an illustrated document to go along with it, recording the stages of the
depainting. the canvas can be shown alone, facing other paintings (preferably old), or integrated into
other de-finitions/methods, either for a limited time or permanently.
description
a written document comes with each actualization of a de-finition/method. the charge-taker and the
artist will each have a copy. the document includes the de-finition/method’s number, the date of chargetaking, the name of the charge-taker, the address where the de-finition/method is actualized, the
characteristics of the place, the dimensions of the wall or walls, the number of canvases, their configuration, their sizes, the details of their hanging, and a sample of the color of each wall. this document
also includes any legal provisions, the conditions of validity and attribution, and any limitations pertaining to its representation or evolution. the document is signed by the two parties, the charge-taker and
the artist. the description will be as close as possible to the work itself. with each modification of the
painting, an amendment describing the modification will added to the document. the whole, therefore,
will constitute one of the possible forms of the history of the work.
have emptied itself of meaning had it not led to questions that make its issues topical: what happens
if there’s no wall? formalism is typical of works that use a repetitive and thus a totalitarian form - be it
geometric or not - and this invariably leads to infinite variations that become their author’s trademark.
doubt
doubt is a positive, dynamic, and open attitude. to my mind, doubt is very simple: if i write that i doubt,
and that, moreover, i doubt doubting, this doesn’t mean that i’m running around in circles: different
moments of thinking or different arguments leading to a proposition never overlap completely, and the
time spent running the circle matters. this is why trying to avoid history leads to disaster. i’m not thinking of doubt here in its fundamentalist sense but in the sense of “being tested in the face of the real.”
this has at times led me to claim that every actualization is doubtful, though i don’t mean by that to
reject it; to doubt is to pose a question. you pose it because you aren’t expecting an answer. in this way,
doubt is a form of repetition that, each time, is enriched by a word, a sentence, a new question. childish method, you’ll say, as in the example of the 1981 de-finition/method #131, “surrounding the painting”:
the instigating idea is to place canvases painted the same color as the wall all around a painting that
is already there (de-finition/method actualized at the museum in nantes in 1994 with a copy of the
poussin self-portrait in the gemaldegalerie in berlin.) if i invert the proposition and surround a canvas
painted the same color as the wall with other works already there, the proposition is equally pertinent.
this modus operandi - that there will not be only one solution for each proposition - a modus operandi designed to destroy all predictability - can be extended to many of the de-finitions/methods.
there’s no one that will ever have the last word.
monochrome
a surface uniformly covered in paint of a single color. the monochrome excludes figures, drawings, and
all elements not instrumental to the covering. even gesture is suspect. for instance, malevich’s 1918
white square is no more a monochrome than his 1915 black quadrilateral or ryman’s 1966 “winsor”. the
same thing applies to unism in poland. yet following rodchenko’s 1921 monochromes shown in the
“5 x 5 = 25” show in moscow, the monochrome has flourished. it has even become a new pictorial genre
like the still life. the canvas painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung is the exact opposite
of monochromatic painting.
economy
although economy should not become the subject of painting, exchange value has today surpassed
use value, use in light of a specific approach to the world, which seems, however its only reason for
being. far from not taking it into account, we must, on the contrary, put the economic dimension in its
place, to make exchange one of the aspects of use. it has a place in various stages of production. wiping
away the first mode of this painting, the written form, modifies what we usually call the painter’s studio.
the passage to the pictorial phase only begins, and the painting only starts to exist from the moment
that it is taken in charge, either provisionally (for an exhibition) or definitively (acquired, either exclusively or not, and then actualized). thus, when the musée de vitry, by the intermediary of frank lamy,
asked me to contribute something on the theme of the art economy for an exhibition, i decided to write
a text on the whole series of de-finitions/methods titled “collection” and actualize one of them myself,
de-finition/method #149 “lend the collection”, by asking françoise and jean-philippe billarant to actualize some of the de-finitions/methods that they own. so they chose from their collection the ones that
would work in the available space, and actualized the exhibition, allowing me to become a spectator
of my own work coming into being.
formalism
the tendency to reduce art to a game of aesthetic forms that turns painting into mere decoration, which
is not to say that it’s neutral. abstract art is undoubtedly the best example of this deviation. as are some
of the early de-finitions/methods, e.g. the de-finitions/methods that explore the visual relationship
between a canvas and a wall. a de-finition/method such as “hanging a square canvas” might very well
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intelligence service productions
a not-for-profit organization whose offices are located at 4, allée richard-wallace, avenue de beauffremont, 78170 la-celle-saint-cloud. france. declared in the journal officiel, february 3, 1983.
non-painting. conception 1977 - first actualization 1987
when the wall is not painted, the canvas is not painted either. each of them is non-painted, in the strict
sense of the term. when the term applies to the wall, non-painted means that you can see the construction material, as it is, stone, concrete, wood, drywall...
when it applies to the canvas, non-painted means not prepared. the primer must be considered as
painting, and this is true as well for supports other than canvas, such as linen, cotton, wood, glass, and
metal. this possibility applies to any de-finition/method on a non-painted wall, and also to papers.
the non-painted may also apply to canvases not hung on the wall (mobile two-fold canvases), or those
laid directly on the floor, as well as in cases in which there is no wall or the wall is transparent.
open work
the relatively strict limits of a de-finition/method’s maneuverability, the precision of the window, assures
the open nature of the work, giving it a maximal availability by the presence of a visual element that
makes the color, coming from outside of it, self-evident. the canvas welcomes any color from any wall
because, without needing to be named, the color of the wall and that of the canvas will tolerate no
difference between them. whether it’s painted or non-painted, the color of the most universal painting
constitutes the most visible index, that which ties all the actualizations together, and unifies their differences. an ongoing work that crosses both time and space.
painting conception 1979, first use 2010
i use the phrase painted canvas in the sense of a primed canvas, which could also be called a prepainted canvas. such a canvas is, itself, a painting. it’s an inevitable stage between non-painting and
repainting. it’s important to take this stage into consideration for several reasons: the technical and
practical aspects of priming, the profusion of white monochromes, and the result, once it has become
the same color as the wall on which it’s hung.
whatever the case, such a canvas cannot be hung alone, though it can be laid on the floor or leaned
against a wall. this position insists on its difference from the canvas painted the same color as the wall.
furthermore, the color of primed canvases have varied over time, even though today, they are usually
white.
with this in mind, for a show i did in 1979 at galerie durand-dessert in paris, i had the announcement
done as a leaflet titled: “for sale: a stack of canvases directly from the manufacturer; wide choice of
sizes and colors.” that show insisted on the fact that primed canvases are also monochromes - which
have nothing to do with canvases painted the same color as the wall.
painting by unit
since 1977, “painting by unit” has replaced “canvas by unit”, dated 1973, which was described as a
stretched canvas painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung. from 1977 on, this first de-finition/method has been described as: a painting painted the same color as the wall on which it’s hung.
various paintings - small or large, old, modern, or contemporary, by well-known or less well-known
artists - will be (re)painted. the charge-taker can choose any painting, as long as the person who created
it is identifiable as a painter (appears in a dictionary of painters, catalogues, reviews, citations, exhibitions...). in short, this de-finition/method requires a charge-taker to efface an existing painting in order
to produce this new one. art history will lose a painting but gain a canvas painted the same color as
the wall, which is to say, a painting without end.
play
a way of actualizing a body of work, play is not a subject but a way of adding an additional figure to
the random character of the proposition. choosing a checkerboard, for example, as a point of departure
for the work eliminates all hesitation. the proposed figure already looks like a geometric painting - and
has no doubt already appeared as such. it spares one the need to choose the number of elements or
to determine the hanging. i’m talking about de-finition/method #54 “positive/negative 2” from 1975.
the checkerboard is made of square canvases painted the same color as the wall, and the pieces are
papers actualized according to the rule governing papers, also from 1975. the actualization is the final
configuration of the pieces at the end of the game, and the winner will install it as it is. art is a game of
money. the two players pay the artist a certain sum for the right to play. the loser has the pleasure of
having played, while the winner enjoys the work for three years at most, at the end of which, he or she
must put it back into play, thus choosing the way the game is played. the charge-taker can play again,
but is not required to.
public works. #1: 1984 - #11: 1993
the periodic publication of posters or small guide books for all the de-finitions/methods that have been
taken in charge. it will list each charge-taker’s name, address, and phone number. this proposition means
that people who want to see the works in the extremely diverse contexts in which they live will be able
to do so. the ultimate aim is to greatly reduce the number of exhibitions. being a charge-taker, perhaps
even more than being a collector, is not a matter of taking works out of circulation. as far as i’m concerned, if a charge-taker says that he or she has one of my works, i’m perfectly free to say, in return,
that one of my works is at the charge-taker’s house or other location. for the moment, despite these
publications, the conservative approach is much more prevalent.
reading
to forget that my painting is first of all written is to miss the whole point because its written quality is
its distinguishing characteristic; it states the desired goal. the actualizations constitute the stages, the
gestures of approach, so the work itself remains always to come. on this subject, see de-finition/method
#370 “nothing to read” from 1990. reading: the introduction to the work plus verification - you don’t
only need to read it, but also to reread it. interpretations will change over time. when the artist and the
charge-taker disagree on an interpretation, they will discuss it. such discussion can lead either to a
definitive estrangement of the protagonists or to a partial or full rewriting of the de-finition/method.
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whatever happens, the text will probably have to be rewritten after a number of years. reading takes
the measure of the text, of the incomplete text. therefore, it’s also a reading of what’s not written, a
form of implicit writing, which is, in turn, the writing of the reader who doesn’t always read what’s
written.
repainting. 1995
to repaint all my works white, that is to say, all my works that pre-date de-finitions/methods - everything
painted before 1973, or at least all the works i have access to. some are “out in the wild” at the moment;
they will be repainted as soon as they reappear.
this repainting will respect the support as much as possible. works that cannot be repainted for technical reasons, such as those on tracing paper, will be destroyed.
based on this (p)reparation, shown at mamco in geneva in 2006, the repainted canvases and papers
become new supports for actualizing existing de-finitions/methods. these supports can only be shown
repainting forever erases a work’s status as a finished object, but also prolongs its life for an indeterminate period. and yet it is in no way a destruction; all the works have been photographed and archived
at mamco in geneva. repainting is not a denial but a reconstruction of the history of an endless painting that takes the destiny of all works upon itself. repainting is a work that is not at the mercy of time;
instead, time is its engine.
a label can be made to go with these repainted paintings:
for the paintings on paper, a rectangle cut from the original painting.
for the canvases, a color photograph if the wall is white, a black and white photograph if the wall is a
color (following the rule that governs papers).
self-critique
writing painting assumes that what’s written will be reread from time to time, and that things happen
between readings that will make the reader want to change the text. the artist always reads his work
with a critical eye, putting any superseded texts into the 1997 de-finition/method “things that shouldn’t
be done anymore”. some of these de-finitions/methods may later be reactivated. the only thing that’s
certain is that nothing is certain, whether in the paintings or in the texts - which means and will continue to mean that there are new editions from time to time. this catalogue includes the most recent
version. the need to question everything has transformed into de-finition/method #364 “corrections
and regrets” 1997.
skepticism
since 1973, i have devoted my work to a refusal of invention, to painting canvases the same color as the
wall in front of me, using standard formats only, hanging canvases wherever there’s some space left,
accepting spaces as they are, and i feel none the worse for it. and because of it, i’ve developed a kind
of indifference - the title of four de-finitions/methods from 1974 - to such a degree that i would have
begun doubting everything if i hadn’t doubted even doubt itself. beyond its sculptural qualities, a stack
of canvases also is an inexhaustible stock of different paintings. and so i find it hard to choose one
de-finition/method to actualize over another. i often want to leave things just as they are. i will paint
tomorrow... waiting, not ruling out an actualization too quickly through precipitate action: taking my
time. i was already engaged with the politics of this approach in 1978 with de-finition/method #114
“stop the collection”: an art collector agrees not to buy anything during a significant period of time
and to pay me during the same period, so that i can afford to not do anything. the collector postpones
the pleasure of enjoying the artworks that he or she wants to buy, and which may well be bought by
someone else in the meantime. yet it would be wrong to see this indifference as a suspension of judgment and time, or as a negative and disillusioned attitude. the realization of a de-finition/method such
as “AMZ” fascinates me because through it i can experience one of my works functioning without my
involvement, as i am not even a charge-taker of one of the canvases.
theory
as althusser said, there’s no need to consider theory and practice as opposites; there’s a constant exchange from theory to practice and from practice to theory. though the form is different, the one does
what the other does and vice versa… to speak only of art, and painting in particular, the prevailing view
of practice and theory as opposites implies that there is pure painting and applied painting. an art
historian once remarked that my work for the saint-prim church consisted in applying the de-finitions/
methods. this would mean that the goal of pictorial research, i.e. theory, is truth. however, by its very
nature, the writing of a de-finition/method leads to a practice that makes the illusory quality of any
truth quite clear. this is why i have never thought of the corpus of my de-finitions/methods as a set of
theoretical propositions, but rather as a written form of painting. i think that i can say that my painting
implies a two-fold practice, of writing and of painting. if a theory were to exist, it would not be my
doing, and it would necessarily stand outside of the work, both of painting and of writing.
time
time is not the subject of the work; it is what constructs it. all representations of time - vanities, hourglasses, clocks with lifeless hands, inscriptions of dates or numerals, etc. - are only diverse ways of
eliminating the questions that duration poses for the work. what distinguishes my painting from that
of many others is that it is produced in real time. the word “actualization” is not a word chosen by
accident; the canvas painted the same color as the wall is temporary. a crucial quality of the temporary
is ephemerality. the train comes into the station, stops for 3 minutes, and then goes on its way. re-actualization is the very condition of the temporary, of which the identical color of wall and canvas is only
one aspect. it’s a painting in the present made to endure, a present that, in order to endure, must change,
change that alone can ensure its identity. the painting pays no attention to its own fragility: it is born;
it dies. its date of birth is never known, and i have no desire to know that of its death. it will only be
there for a moment, but there will be others. “my paintings have short lives, but they have many lives.”
TRANSIT
de-finition/method #357, theme 61 of “from stack to stack”. a variable supply of supports that have
served or will serve to actualize or re-actualize existing de-finitions/methods. these supports are mostly
stretched canvases, but there are also naked stretchers waiting for their canvases, wood panels, glass
and metal plaques, and cardboard. TRANSIT, which has been gradually coming into existence since
1983, is a separate, autonomous de-finition/method and must be stored in a closed space. it can only
be seen from the outside. its location must observe two instructions: maximum accessibility and
maximum visibility, so that it can be used as easily as possible. TRANSIT must continue to evolve according to the outgoing and incoming canvases. no de-finition/method can be exhibited in the space
where TRANSIT is stored. what you see when you see TRANSIT is all the de-finitions/methods that are
waiting to be actualized or re-actualized. TRANSIT must be exhibited in such a way that no canvas will
seem to belong to one de-finition/method as opposed to another. the presentation must remain undifferentiated: no work within the work. the exhibition of TRANSIT, which is managed in real time by the
charge-taker, should be accompanied by information and publications, either pre-existing or created
for the exhibition. the nature and details of this supplementary material will be determined by the location and the state of the work. TRANSIT was active from 1982 to 2002 at the ccc in tours, and then
234
from 2002 to 2006 in the “éclat de folie” hosted by the apsv in the park de la villette in paris.
translation (the translators’ note)
this translation is an actualization of the french text in english. as in the french text, the translation
results from a process. the translators (an american woman and a french man) worked from several
versions of the text as they were being produced and continually revised, which accounts for various
differences between the french text and the english translation. as is true of all the artist’s work, their
relation is one of instability and transformation. and yet, claude rutault’s vocabulary and grammar are
specific. we actualized this specificity in english, taking into account that two languages never overlap,
at least never completely. we also felt it important to retain some distinctive features of the text, such
as its notional style. as in all interesting translation projects, the central words of this one are untranslatable, and that is particularly true of the key word “actualization,” for in english, the words actual,
actualize, and actually have no temporal connotation, whereas in french, “actuellement” means right
now, and “les actualités” are those events that just happened - they are the news - therefore, to actualize something is more than to realize it; it is to confront the nature of time by connecting directly to it.
we kept the word “actualize,” but wanted to let english readers know about this missing dimension, so
that they can mentally restore it. the text also includes various puns, which we kept as much as possible, but one we couldn’t translate was im/mobilier in de-finition/method #449, which puns on immobilier (real estate) and mobilier (furniture). we left these in the original french. gender is also represented very differently in french, following the word, not its referent. for instance, the word “preneur
en charge” (charge-taker) is a masculine word, and therefore, is always referred to as he. we used the
gender-neutral he or she in all places except where it simply became too cumbersome and interrupted
a smooth reading of the text; in those places, we used the simple he, but with the understanding that
the generous reader will recognize the problem and forgive us. standard formats are also not the same
in france and america; furthermore, the very unit of measure is different, france using centimeters, and
america, inches. it is understood that the charge-taker will actualize any de-finition/method in the
format and measure of his or her country. one last note: in “mondrian 5”, the title of the mondrian
painting is indeed “new york boogie woogie”, which is a different painting from the much better known
“broadway boogie woogie”.
unpredictability
the unpredictable elements of the actualization depend on the space’s circumstances, which can’t be
known in advance. even if all the parameters were known, the decisions and choices that the chargetaker will make can not be. the de-finitions/methods were written to allow painting to happen wherever painted works can be found. adaptability is the main strength of the de-finitions/methods, but it’s
also at the root of all their dangers.
utopia
utopia collapses as soon as the word is either written or spoken. writing a de-finition/method amounts
to endowing it with existence, anticipating the beginning of an actualization, although its future as a
painting is still uncertain. as soon as it finds a place to be - if only on the page of a book - it becomes
real.
index
p. 72. de-finition/method #343. “a cube in my collection, theme 47 of ‘from stack to stack’” 1989-1990
p. 62. de-finition/method #375. “address” 1990
p. 44. de-finition/method #222. “after several years” 2012
p. 213. de-finition/method #39. “à la carte” 1978
p. 143. de-finition/method #354. “AMZ” 1984-1987
p. 122. de-finition/method #385. “and now for lot #385…” 1988
p. 86. de-finition/method #508. “a non-painted canvas puts painting in the shade” 2010
p. 138. de-finition/method #567. “a portfolio of ten stacks” 1994
p. 98. de-finition/method #226. “a saturday morning on the grande jatte or at port-en-bessin” 2010
p. 196. de-finition/method #379. “battleship” 1985
p. 52. de-finition/method #513. “between sky and earth” 2010
p. 152. de-finition/method #363. “blocking minority” 1989-1990
p. 182. de-finition/method 260. “captions/photographs” 2010
p. 36. de-finition/method #555. “cardinal canvases” 2011
p. 60. de-finition/method #77. “change/invariance 1” 1975
p. 220. de-finition/method #588. “collaboration” 2013
p. 156. de-finition/method #111. “collection 4” 1978
p. 134. de-finition/method #393. “copies/doubles” 1991
p. 218. de-finition/method #364. “corrections and regrets” 1997
p. 50. de-finition/method #51. “delineating the wall” 1975
p. 132. de-finition/method #397. “divided in three” 1992
p. 202. de-finition/method #556. “dream canvases” 2011
p. 34. de-finition/method #102. “elements in a spiral” 1976
p. 150. de-finition/method #515. “everyone moves their pawns forward” 1984-2010
p. 116. de-finition/method #496. “exhibition-suicide 1” 2010
p. 118. de-finition/method #497. “exhibition-suicide 2” 2010
p. 54. de-finition/method #34. “formats at the limit 2” 1974
p. 48. de-finition/method #35. “formats at the limit 3” 1974
p. 112. de-finition/method #447. “full-length self-portrait” 2011
p. 198. de-finition/method #107. “generalized puzzle-painting” 1997-2010
p. 102. de-finition/method #236. “goldfish go painting” 2005
p. 210. de-finition/method #434. “history of a space” 2011
p. 74. de-finition/method #301. “horizontal/vertical, theme 5 of ‘from stack to stack’” 1989-1990
p. 126. de-finition/method #449. “im/mobilier” 2010
p. 96. de-finition/method #505. “letter to doctor barnes” 2010
p. 56. de-finition/method #180. “maximum/minimum” 1979
p. 206. de-finition/method #287. “mobile double-canvases” 1986
p. 110. de-finition/method #219. “mondrian 5” 2011
p. 208. de-finition/method #195. “monochromes 4” 1983-2011
p. 84. de-finition/method #196. “monochromes 5” 1994
p. 66. de-finition/method #349. “obstacles and defenses, theme 53 of ‘from stack to stack’” 1989-1990
p. 40. de-finition/method #45. “one canvas displaces another 3” 1975
p. 69. de-finition/method #299. “one stack, one wall, theme 3 of ‘from stack to stack’” 1989-1990
p. 42. de-finition/method #174. “on the wall/on the floor” 1979-2011
p. 22. de-finition/method #2. “painted / non-painted / repainted (‘la place des vosges’, 1974) / de236
painted (‘les joueurs de boule’, 1969)” 1973/1977/1995
p. 24. de-finition/method #4. “painted / repainted (‘la france défigurée’, 1969) / non-painted” 1973/1995/1977
p. 100. de-finition/method #230. “painting adrift, after géricault” 1986-2013
p. 186. de-finition/method #554 “painting as a neighbor” 2009
p. 128. de-finition/method #384. “painting blind” 2010
p. 26. de-finition/method #6. “painting / depainting (‘le monde’ 1971) / repainting (untitled 1962)” 1973-1977-2010
p. 30. de-finition/method #500. “painting in the balance” 2010
p. 88. de-finition/method #450. “painting flattened out” 1993
p. 168. de-finition/method #483. “painting makes a movie“ 1969-1996
p. 136. de-finition/method #140. “painting’s no piece of cake” 1978
p. 160. de-finition/method #191. “painting’s sleepless nights” 1980
p. 120. de-finition/method #144. “painting-suicide 1” 1978
p. 114. de-finition/method #511. “painting-tomb” 2001
p. 176. de-finition/method 537. “painting with no beginning or end” 2011
p. 94. de-finition/method #235. “paradise lost” 1998
p. 178. de-finition/method #528. “prepared painting for a musician” 2010
p. 104. de-finition/method #234. “phew! ... kazimir” 1986-2010
p. 170. de-finition/method #506. “photography is no more than the shadow of painting” 2010
p. 188. de-finition/method #541. “please...” 2011
p. 92. de-finition/method #228. “portrait of… by manet / rutault” 1986-1994
p. 32. de-finition/method #55. “positive/negative 3” 1975
p. 224. de-finition/method #538. “post-scriptum” 2011
p. 192. de-finition/method #458. “puppets” 1994
p. 64. de-finition/method #136. “re-doubling 4” 2012
p. 172. de-finition/method #544. “rehearsal” 1998-2000
p. 106. de-finition/method #210. “replica or rutault/rodchenko” 1982
p. 194. de-finition/method #391. “round or oval nested paintings” 1989
p. 162. de-finition/method #190. “série noire” 1979
p. 58. de-finition/method #378. “small and large version” 1991
p. 124. de-finition/method #387. “sold/bought” 1989
p. 130. de-finition/method #292. “stack at maturity, ef version” 1987
p. 140. de-finition/method #499. “stack in common” 2010
p. 76. de-finition/method #353. “stack-mark, theme 57 of ‘from stack to stack’” 1989-1990
p. 78. de-finition/method #306. “stack/ream, theme 10 of ‘from stack to stack’” 1989-1990
p. 226. de-finition/method #114. “stop the collection” 1983
p. 184. de-finition/method #254. “surrounding the photograph” 1981
p. 108. de-finition/method #351. “suspended stack, theme 57 of ‘from stack to stack’” 1989-1990
p. 146. de-finition/method #498. “the accursed stack” 2010
p. 28. de-finition/method #490. “the test of painting” 1973-2010
p. 214. de-finition/method #516. “timeless” 2010
p. 165. de-finition/method #237. “tokyo story” 2010
p. 90. de-finition/method #446. “toward a self-portrait of painting” 1993
p. 180. de-finition/method #558. “translations” 2011
p. 80. de-finition/method #74. “transparent papers” 1975
p. 38. de-finition/method #522. “turning the page” 2010
p. 204. de-finition/method #246. “two paintings” 1981
p. 216. de-finition/method #285. “upstream/downstream” 1986-1994
p. 190. de-finition/method #539. “visioguide” 2007
p. 82. de-finition/method #465. “walk 2” 1995
> except where indicated, all the photographs are of actualizations made for this catalogue.
thanks to:
Sharifa Al-Sudairi, Jean-Philippe et Françoise Billarant, Patrick Bongers, Robert Bordeaux-Groult, Yves
Bouvier, Blandine Chavanne, Philippe Cohen, Eric Decelle, Xavier Douroux, Mimette Drommelschlager,
David Fleiss, FRAC des Pays de la Loire, FRAC Bretagne, Franck Gautherot, Nicolas Libert, Jean et
Catherine Madar, Patricia Marshall, Jean-Hubert Martin, Emmanuel Perrotin, Marie-Aline Prat, Emmanuel Renoird, Steve et Chiara Rosenblum, Ninon Rutault-Diligent, Sandra Mulliez, David Trabulsi,
Cathy Vedovi
claude rutault bibliography (selected):
“marie louise”, éditions jannink, paris. 1994
“camotanologue”, éditions mamco, genève. 1999
“définitions/méthodes le livre”, éditions flammarion 4, paris. 2000
“le môme vers le gris”, éditions des cendres, paris. 2003
“suite”, éditions des cendres, paris. 2004
“lointains”, éditions des cendres, paris. 2011
238
claude rutault
© Damiani | Perrotin 2013
© de-finitions/methods and actualizations, claude rutault, 2013
Cover: de-finition/method #499. “stack in common” 2010
Coordination: Julie Morhange, Daphne Valroff, Raphaël Gatel, Jeanne Briand, Clémentine Dupont
Documentation: Marie-Hélène Breuil
Graphic Design: Frédéric Bourgoin
Photography: Antoine Cadot (all photos except the following), CCC de Tours (p.83), C. Clos © Ville de
Nantes-Musée des Beaux-Arts (p.197), Y. Michaud © Confort Moderne (p.173-175), Vincent Cunillère (p.55),
Marc Domage (p.107), FRAC des Pays de la Loire (p.144-145), Ilmai Kakkinen (p.22, 24, 26), André Morin
(p. 63, 79), Frédéric Pignoux (p.87, 89), Claude Rutault (p.85)
Texts: interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist, texts and glossary by Claude Rutault
Translation: Vincent Broqua, Cole Swensen; Gail De Courcy-Ireland (interview)
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Printed in July 2013 by Grafiche Damiani, Bologna, Italy.
ISBN 978-88-6208-321-8

claude rutault - Galerie Perrotin

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