François Morellet was recognised as one of the most important artists of twentieth-century geometric abstraction. His works are emotionally neutral. By employing constructivist, mathematical systems his works play with our visual expectations. Planes and lines are tilted, symmetry is disrupted and geometry is altered. The result is playful, challenging and beautiful and requires the observer to engage intellectually as well as aesthetically.
Morellet was, in the early 1960s, the founding member of Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV), a group which believed that the notion of the sole artist was outdated and which focused on the direct participation of the public. He began using materials such as sticky tape and neon, which were, at the time, unconventional in the realm of fine art. These materials had not been “polluted” by traditional art and neon allowed “the light source itself, not its reflection, [to be] regarded as a plastic material” (François Morellet, ‘Les sources lumineuses directes dans l’art’, 1966).
Morellet continued his practice for over half a century, expanding into the realm of public artworks and architectural commissions, and it is with great pleasure that we show this recent work.
Born in 1926 in Cholet, France, François Morellet lived and worked in Paris and Cholet. He had some 130 solo exhibitions which have included being honoured with a major retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, Paris in 2011, as well as exhibitions at Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Modern Art Oxford and MoMA, New York. François Morellet passed away on the 10th May at the age of 90.
Please click link below to see film footage of the installation
