Blue, yellow, red : a contemporary return

We wanted to bring together a number of our contemporary artists around the colors blue, yellow and red and observe the way their works respond to each other.

Some, like Charles Bézie, who is more of a fan of black and white, returned to these primary colors at the end of his career when he had started a series entitled Les Primaires in the 1980s. Les Primaires were produced on a white background, On the other hand, the Ortholudes which date from 2015 have a black background and the rule of numbers which orders these colors is different.

Ode Bertrand, who has difficulty tackling color, nevertheless tackled the task and the result is vibrant. The work of graphics and geometry of black lines on a white background, for which she is best known, takes nothing away from the perfectly mastered transition to color. She succeeded in what she wanted, to give birth to something spiritual and evanescent when nothing is there anymore, a trace of a passage.

Nicholas Bodde was honored with an exhibition at the Arithmeum Museum in Bonn, Germany, which began in May entitled “De la couleur à l’infini”. As its name suggests, it has taken over this museum with all its colorful palette, which has delighted visitors. Its ovals, circles, horizontals and verticals of colored bands as well as its totems have enlivened the picture rails and spaces of the place.

The small sculptures from the Ana series by Jean-Gabriel Coignet punctuate the stroll through this exhibition. They are a divine red, burgundy, and shiny, their perfect proportions give them a statuary art.

Jean-François Dubreuil will be present with a diptych from 2010 where the yellow makes a notable appearance. The color chosen at random for the analysis of this ‘Quotidien d’Oran’ makes this newspaper the radiance of the sun which reigns in the Algerian city.

We will return to a very refined work by Jean-Michel Gasquet (1929-2023) produced in the 2010s, primary colors on a white background. It should be noted that one of her works is part of the current exhibition ‘Homage to France’ at the Ritter Museum in Waldenbuch, Germany, a selection of works made by the collector and founder of the museum.

The latest works of Renaud Jacquier Stajnowicz show an interior light, like a door that opens and lets out a powerful light. He mounts his paintings by cutting his frames himself, which gives them an astonishing architecture.

Antoine Perrot, master of ready-made color, color imported from industrially produced materials, invites us to discover his latest works made from woven bolducs, which give them an almost impressionist spirit that we have compared to works constructed from 90s made with colorful sponges.

Yves Popet shares with us his magic squares skillfully executed in pastel, in a variation of blue and red.

A work by Henri Prosi (1936-2010) from the 70s and 80s where broken lines intertwine created from cut-out canvases and laminated onto a free canvas, captures us with its vitality. We will stop longer to understand what is dancing under our eyes.

But what would have become of yellow without the intervention of André Stempfel, who made it his favorite color, which comes in abstruse or derisory movements.

Moon-Pil Shim’s work is very soft, behind its successive layers of plexiglass and canvases coated in fluorescent, white or red colors, the effects of depth through superpositions are mysterious.

So make way for a colorful start to the school year !