Peinture à la bombe sur toile libre
350 x 238.8 cm
FGA-BA-ARNAA-0005

Narrated by Lucie Pfeiffer, assistant curator Fine Arts Collection

At the turn of the 1970s, the Supports/Surfaces group explored questions relating to painting and its materiality. At that time, the deconstruction of the traditional painting was at the heart of their reflection and some artists did not hesitate to separate the canvas from the stretcher in order to fold, crumple, sew or cut it, thereby questioning the support and the surface of the painting.

With his Froissage from 1968, André-Pierre Arnal associated the production of form and colour with the materiality of the support. He crumpled the canvas and covered it in paint, allowing random forms to appear.

This technique is reminiscent of that of Simon Hantaï, whose pioneering work strongly influenced the Supports / Surfaces artists and Arnal in particular. As early as 1962, Hantaï had used the crumpling of the canvas in the Manteau de la Vierge, entrusting the result of the pictorial composition to chance.