Jean-Gabriel Coignet Katarzyna Série

Elementary geometry has two parts : plane geometry and spatial geometry. The work of Jean-Gabriel Coignet follows the principles of both. On the wall facing the entrance to La Verrière, a large square sketch draws out the principles of construction and assemblage that structure his sculptures, with parallels and lines that cross one another, the thin slivers of space between them filled in with pencil.
In front of this subdued drawing, in black and white, stand seven sculptures and painted texture pieces.
At first glance, they look like cubes, cones, pyramids, parallelepipeds. In reality, they are forms with alternately eroded and sharp edges, quite unusual and difficult to define in geometric terms. The material
they are made of, however, is ordinary steel, lacquered at an auto body shop near Angoulême, the city where this quiet artist lives and works. The forms, sleek and glossy, are either painted in vivid colours,
almost florescent, or in other subtle, sophisticated shades. Appearing for the first time in Coignet’s work, “Katarzyna Série” cements right angles together and stacks them up by five, with a radicality that draws
upon the work of artists like Donald Judd or Ellsworth Kelly, or to go farther back in time, Russian constructivist Katarzyna Kobro.
Critic Paul Ardenne places Coignet “between the exaltation of Hans Arp and the mathematical obstination of Max Bill” ; in the Dictionnaire d’art moderne contemporain, Joëlle Pijaudier, museum curator of Strasbourg, puts him “at the crossroads of Constructivism, Minimal Art and Process Art” ; Jean Pierre Greff, Director of the ةcole des Beaux-Arts of Geneva, likens his work to the minimalism of Tony Smith.
But it wasn’t always so. In the 1980’s, Coignet’s research led him from modular structures to structures in balance and tension, from dizzyingly high fixtures to small-scale architecture. In 1985, a FIACRE grant
allowed him to discover Japan. And the films of Ozu. For another five years, Coignet let his forms flow and clarify. Then suddenly, a breakthrough. His sculptures were anchored in their environmental setting, for which they became a filter. As if everything had become clear. By eliminating, by rejecting anything extraneous, anything in excess, by streamlining his thinking and raising new stakes, he set his sights on polish, on colour, on clear-cut forms where calm reigns. Miracles of balance, these sculptures make the space breathe, and by inviting us to wander about, introduce the notion of passing time.