Claude Viallat
The artist
Claude Viallat was born in 1936 in Nimes, France, where he continues to live and work. He is one of the founders of the Supports/Surfaces movement in the 1970s, which called for art to renew itself through a deconstruction of traditional materials. Viallat started to work on industrial tarp, endlessly repeating the same abstract pattern, resembling a small bone, which became his signature. Stencilled repeatedly onto a range of supports, the pattern asks us to reflect on the meaning of the creative act and the status of the work of art.
Exhibitions
-
Made in Nîmes
March 14 - April 27, 2024
New York -
Homage to Colour — Canvases 1966-2023
November 4 - December 23, 2023
Paris - Beaubourg -
A Couple of Sidesteps
September 7 - November 4, 2023
Brussels -
Sutures et Varia
January 30 – March 20, 2021
Paris - Grenier Saint Lazare -
Les échelles de Nîmes
June 7 - July 27, 2018
Brussels -
Les années 1980
June 4 - July 23, 2016
Paris - Beaubourg -
Claude Viallat
September 12 - October 31, 2014
Brussels -
Oeuvres récentes
March 1 - April 5, 2014
Paris - Beaubourg -
Raboutages
January 10 - February 21, 2009
Paris - Beaubourg -
Tentes militaires
December 1 - January 13, 2007
Paris - Beaubourg -
Portes et fenêtres
January 24 - February 28, 2004
Paris - Beaubourg -
Objets
November 25 - January 13, 2001
Paris - Beaubourg -
Oeuvres récentes
Apr 29 - Jun 3, 1998
Paris - Beaubourg
Biography
| Birth | Born in 1936 in Nîmes, France |
|---|---|
| Residency | He lives and works in Nîmes, France |
| Education | 1955 – 1959, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Montpellier, France 1962 – 1963, Ecole supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France |
SOLO EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
| 2024 | Tout est pour le mieux, Bund Art Center, Shanghai, China Le retour de Claude Viallat, Kunming Museum of Contemporary Art, Kunming, China Made in Nîmes, TEMPLON, New York, USA |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Hommage à la couleur - Toiles 1966-2023, TEMPLON, Paris, France Et pourtant si…, Carré d’Art, Nîmes, France Quelques pas de côté, TEMPLON, Brussels, Belgium |
| 2022 | Formes en Vrac, Sainte-Marie Chapel, Annonay, France Libertad de Colores, MACBA Buenos Aires, Argentina Claude Viallat, Hôtel Richer de Belleval, Montpellier, France Éclectique, Bonisson Art Center, Rognes, France Claude Viallat, Médiathèque de Vauvert, Vauvert, France Claude Viallat, Maison Elsa Triolet-Aragon, Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines, France |
| 2021 | Claude Viallat : Expandend painting in the 1960’s and 1970’s, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA Sutures et Varia, TEMPLON, Paris, France |
| 2019 | Viallat Sérigraphie, Centre Culturel Bérenger de Frédol, Villeneuve-les-Maguelone, France Malereien, Kajetan Gallery, Berlin, Germany Claude Viallat, Venet Foundation, Le Muy, France Re-commencer, La halle des Bouchers, Vienne, France |
| 2018 | Les échelles de Nîmes, TEMPLON, Brussels, Belgium Claude Viallat, Galerie Ceysson & Bénétière, Luxembourg El Horizonte del Color, Hotel Hilton, Panama City, Panama Art Basel Unlimited, TEMPLON, Basel, Switzerland Inside and Outside, HdM Gallery, Beijing, China |
| 2017 | La peinture à perte de vue, Casa França - Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Toiles, Objets, Filets, L'aspirateur, Narbonne, France In situ, Palais des archevêques, Narbonne, France |
Voir plus
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
| 2024 | Encore et encore, rituels d’artistes, Maison des Arts de Schaerbeek, Brussels, Belgium |
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| 2023 | Amour Systémique, Capc musée d’art contemporain, Bordeaux, France La Répétition, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France |
| 2022 | VIALLAT/SAYTOUR, Presbytery of Aubais, Aubais, France Collection Collective ACMCM, à cent mètres du centre du monde / Centre d’Art Contemporain, Perpignan, France Tribute to Jacques Girard, Ombres Blanches, Toulouse, France Tauromachies, Mouriès, France |
| 2021 | Supports/Surfaces : Abstractions plurielles 1950-1980, Musée d’art de Pully, Pully, Switzerland Supports/Surfaces : Viallat & Saytour, Musée National d’Art et d’Histoire, Luxembourg, Luxembourg Expanded painting in the 1960’s and 1970’s, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA Les murs reculent, Musée Matisse, Nice, France |
| 2019 | East West Jazz - André-Pierre Arnal, Patrick Saytour, Claude Viallat, Musée Pouchkine, Moscou, Russie Mare Nostrum: Identités Méditerranéennes, Espace Monte Cristo, Fondation Villa Datris, Paris, France Histoire de l’art cherche personnage..., CAPC Bordeaux, France Unfurled : Supports/Surfaces 1966-1976, MOCAD, Detroit, Etats-Unis Vingt-quatre heures de la vie d’une femme – Musée d’art contemporain, Saint-Etienne, France Un autre œil d’Apollinaire à aujourd’hui, LAAC Dunkerque, France Gigantisme – Art et Industrie, FRAC Grand Large Hauts-de-France, Dunkerque, France Supports/Surfaces, Tsinghua Art Museum, Pékin, China Pattern, décoration et crime, Le Consortium, Dijon, France La composante Peintures, FRAC Bretagne, Rennes, France |
| 2018 | Images en lutte, Beaux-Arts, Paris, France School of Nice from Pop Art to happenings, City Hall, Hong Kong, China La Méditerranée et l'art moderne, Musée Mohammed VI, Rabat, Maroc Nous aussi nous aimons l'art, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France |
| 2017 | École(s) de Nice 1947 - 1967, MAMAC, Nice, France The Surface of the East coast, Le 109, Nice, France Supports/Surfaces, les origines 1966-1970, Carré d'Art, Nîmes, France |
Voir plus
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS (SELECTION)
| Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France | |
| Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France | |
| Musée d'Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne, France | |
| Carré d'Art, Musée d'Art Moderne de Nîmes, France | |
| Musée Cantini, Marseille, France | |
| Musée d'Art Contemporain de Nice, France | |
| Musée d'Art Moderne de Strasbourg, France |
Voir plus
Press Release
The New York Times - April, 2024
What to See in N.Y.C galleries in April
Blake Gopnik - Roberta Smith - Max Lakin
Radio France - December, 2023
Claude Viallat, peintre : "Je ponctue l'espace, je marque un tempo"
La Libre Belgique - September, 2023
Les surfaces souveraines de Claude Viallat
Gwennaëlle Gribaumont
Télérama Sortir - mars 2021
Claude Viallat - Sutures et varia
Le Figaro - March, 2023
Un week-end haut en couleur avec Mika, Gainsbourg et Viallat...
Sophie De Santis
Art Media Agency - juin 2016
Claude Viallat essence et négation
Connaissance des Arts - juin 2016
Claude Viallat, l'euphorie des années 1980
News
Claude Viallat
EXPANDED PAINTING IN THE 1960S AND 1970S – GROUP SHOW
Fall 2021
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia
The exhibition “Expanded Painting in the 1960s and 1970s” presents radical innovations in painting that testify to a pursuit of freedom and expression in the midst of a period marked by social and political unrest in the United States and abroad. From Alma Thomas’s mosaic-like painting of flowers to Sam Gilliam’s suspended, draped canvas, these works speak to an upending of barriers-be they artistic, ideological, racial, or rooted in gender stereotypes. By rethinking and systematically probing conventions associated with the painted canvas, these works ultimately speak to the desire for a deeper, more fundamental connection to nature, the body, movement, and light.
Claude Viallat
SUPPORTS/SURFACES : VIALLAT & SAYTOUR – GROUP SHOW
Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art
Marché-aux-Poissons L-2345 Luxembourg
Until August 29, 2021
In this exhibition important acquisitions from recent years are shown, focusing on works by two founding members of the Supports/Surfaces movement: Patrick Saytour and Claude Viallat. As a representative of the Nouvelle Peinture, Claude Viallat focuses on the primary and structural elements of painting: the canvas, the colour and the surface. Since 1966, he has been working on colour, which is both the subject and the object. The stretcher disappears. The free canvas is painted and against this background of colour, Viallat places stencil prints, repeatedly and in series. Most of the works presented here show that for him color is elementary to convey the repeated forms that lend his art coherent dimensions and rhythm, so characteristic of Supports/Surfaces.
Claude Viallat
« LES MURS RECULENT » – GROUP SHOW
From October 9, 2020 to March 31, 2021
The Musée Matisse, 164 Avenue des Arènes de Cimiez, 06000 Nice
The new exhibition of Matisse Museum in Nice shows the work of Henri Matisse’s posterity in the second half of the XXth century. This new circuit entitled “Les murs reculent” is inspired by a quote of the artist to the critic Georges Duthuit about Fauvism that summarise an essential aspect of his research. American and European Artists are presented in dialogue with the artworks of the museum collection incuding Jean Arp, Joseph Albers, Morris Louis, Jules Olitski, Ellsworth Kelly, Shirley Jaffe, Kenneth Noland, Al Held, Frank Stella, Richard Serra, Aurélie Nemours, Simon Hantaï, Raymond Hains, Jacques Villeglé, Claude Viallat, Daniel Buren.
Claude Viallat
INSTALLATION
Ephemeral installation
Villa Seynave, domaine de Beauvallon, Grimaud, France
A beautiful installation of Claude Viallat can be seen at Villa Seynave in Grimaud, France. Commissioned by a Lorraine industrialist who appreciated the architecture of another villa by Jean Prouvé at Lavandou, this holiday “bungalow” is built on the edge of the Beauvallon golf course. It is the beautiful result of a great teamwork between engineer Jean Prouvé and architect Neil Hutchinson.
Claude Viallat
EAST WEST JAZZ – GROUP SHOW
THE PUSHKIN STATE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, MOSCOW, RUSSIAFrom 01/10/2019 to 15/11/2019
The exhibition “East West Jazz” displays over 30 unique robes and textiles from Alexander Klyachin’s collection and over two dozens of post-war abstract paintings from the collection of the Gandur Foundation for Art. The scope of the exhibition is widened by works from the collections of The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and the Centre Pompidou to further reveal the interaction between Eastern and Western cultures, notably 14 rarely displayed sheets from Henri Matisse’s “jazz” graphic series created in 1947 and works by Kandinsky from the Pushkin Museum collection and 14 abstract works from the Centre Pompidou and French private collections. This exhibition will be philosophical, emotional and contemplative, rather than didactic.
Claude Viallat
RE – COMMENCER – SOLO SHOW
CENTRE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN LA HALLE BOUCHERS - VIENNE, FRANCE From 14/06/2019 to 18/08/2019
Claude Viallat is a confirmed artist, one of the very first French artists of his generation, but his work finds today a very contemporary resonance as the ecological consciousness develops, the return to practices and craft techniques, to a know-how that is a way of resisting hyper mechanization, technological development, digital dematerialization and the reversal of man’s position in his environment. The unseemly part that we perceive in Claude Viallat’s work, this impertinence sought in support, form or color, this unexpected, this unfinished, this precariousness, has the character of an absolute youth.
Claude Viallat
CLAUDE VIALLAT. LIBéRER LA COULEUR – SOLO SHOW
VENET FOUNDATION - LE MUY, FRANCE From 13/06/2019 to 13/09/2019
Curated by Alexandre Devals, director of the foundation, “Claude Viallat – Unleashing the color” presents some twenty works of Claude Viallat large format carried on military tarpaulins, a series started in the late 1970s that extends until the last years. The heart of the exhibition is the works shown in 1980 at CAPC de Bordeaux, a major and pivotal exhibition in Viallat’s work through the use of a dense support, the exploration of polychrome and the cutting of the canvas in colour charts. This exhibition marked a turning point in Viallat’s practice and consecrated him as one of the greatest colourists of his time
Claude Viallat
Daniel Dezeuze
MOUVEMENT SUPPORTS/SURFACES : RETROUVER L’éCONOMIE DES GESTES SIMPLES – GROUP SHOW
FESTIVAL CROISEMENT, BEIJING, CHINA From 21/05/2019 to 20/08/2019
As part of the Croisements 2019 Festival organized by the French Institute in Beijing, the Meymac Center for Contemporary Art presents the first exhibition of the Supports / Surfaces movement in China. This group of artists, who emerged in France in the mid-1960s, revolutionized the visual arts through a new use of materials. Their project: to free the pictorial art from the historical and cultural straitjacket represented by the canvas.
