MAMCO, Genève (CH) 9 October 2019 - 2 February 2020
Martin Barré
MAMCO’s take on Martin Barré is Switzerland’s first large-scale presentation of work by this pivotal figure in mid-to-late 20th-century art. Featuring representative works from each period, the show retraces Martin Barré’s engagement with the medium of painting: the enterprise that lead him to experiment ceaselessly with the sensory, cerebral, chromatic, and physical properties and possibilities of pictorial form.
Curator : Clément Dirié
Since the beginning of his practice in 1954 until his series of the 1980s-1990s, his contributions to the history of painting have been essential, notably: his unique synthesis of post-war abstraction, his pioneering use of spray in the years 1963–1967 and his manner of occupying the canvas space – always renewed. He has constantly been redefining the meaning of gestural painting, laid-baring and celebrating it, while testing the limits of pictorial space.
This fall, MAMCO constructs a typology of pictorial gestures and signs through experimental practices, tracing a unique path through the history of post-war painting. Their latest exhibitions will delve into the work of Martin Barré, Rosemarie Castoro, Irma Blank, and Arnulf Rainer. Their replacement of brushwork by the use of spray, the extension of painting to the body and the space, the liberation of language from meaning, or the covering-over of pre-existing images are just some of the tropes on show—“gestures” that remind us that artists think above all in forms, that cannot be properly looked at and apprehended until they are understood as such.
Press review
Tribune de Genève — 12.10.2019
« Quand gestes et signes fondent le récit pictural »
Works on loan
