The sensitive dimension and the physicality of the painting should not make forget that it completely obeys a rigorous process. Its capacity of renewal was not extinct in spite the speeches about the presumed died of this medium. Unfortunately, the institutions do not have sufficiently specialized grids of evaluation to be able to recognize the relevance of a process especially in a discipline, which, was chloroformed by stupid and nasty bias.
The cultural authorities are generally unaware of the innovation especially in painting. That is why the researcher artist finds himself against the currents whether it is its vocation or not.
It would be erroneous for him to make depend his art from the tendencies of the moment ether for trying to please to the authorities or to contradict them.
In the first case, it would give an art which it repeat itself until the saturation. It would not bring anything interesting for anyone. In the second case, absolutely wanting running against the current would make the risk to jump in the whole past and to even follow in ancient masters wake: They painted so well, don’t they?
The rigour of a pictorial process in only conceived far from the allegations of the official art. Completely independent, Its purposes bring a contribution to the painting to widen its field of application and invent new theories. For twenty years at least, this principle has guided our works and made us able to elaborate the concepts of the supranaive figuration. Now, we still row against the current. However, the current can be reversed. Perhaps one day, shall we have the surprise to see that without changing direction, we row finally in the good direction?
Extract from the” Forum de la figuration supra-naïve “ author :Georges Koutsandréou 21 09 2005/ CONTRE COURANTS/RESOLUMENT NOUVEAU.
site : http://supranaiv.figuration.site.voila.fr
“Painted image can’t be simply considered as the glance can see it. That rudimentary approach of painting denies its metaphysical dimension. The other disciplines of the visual arts are admitted in their d affinities with the abstraction one, the immaterial one, the impalpable one. It is not possible to understand their artistic process by showing complete disregard for the artist’s intents.
The supposed opposition between these disciplines called contemporary art and painting would make painting directly accessible to the beholder who would not be encouraged to look for impressions beyond than he sees. There would be thus no space for a metaphysical interpretation ( except for abstract painting). Thus, an imaginary pictorial would be considered as an intangible reality. According to disregard for the metaphysical dimension to the figurative painting, one do not know what to do with the concepts. Even in figurative painting, they always existed. Our movement is included in the “figurational” painting. We use this word to call a figurative conceptual painting. Nowadays, the novelty is less the conceptualization of a figurative painting than the integration of minimalist concepts to the figure.
It seems to us that this process would be able to lead a new movement, which opens a new field of investigation of painting. We try to produce works in conformity with these principles. There is perhaps a distance between the concepts and their pictorial expression but this gap has bees observed in a lot of painting movements. Is it a reason for denies any new painting movements? It is possible to find the same is gap between intents and results in every level of the fields of the thought, however the humanity advances.
Let’s talk about the metaphysics in the supranaive paintings: My painting is in space. Like a ploughman, I plow a support with the glue. Then, I am transformed into a sowed. I stand up and over the field-support. I sow the dried up grains or specks of dust, which flutter in space before being fixed in a wet furrow and tracing in the l flash, the figure.Thus, the metaphysics of the unstable matter as the electrons around a nucleus takes form only concentrated on the canvas.”
In Martina Charbonnel's painting, metaphysical dimension is expressed by the double dimension of the figure built around the axis traced by a vertical crossing the rectangle. One of the halves of the silhouette is wholly contained in a part of the canvas. It is our terrestrial dimension structured inside an organized framework. It thus avoids any terrestrial influence. It crosses only partially the rectangle. Its monumentality tends towards the infinite one and thus joins with the bottom of the being. “
Post from ex forum Art Press" La peinture est toujours en mouvement."July 21st
Photo : Georges Koutsandréou 2005" Ombrelle" acrylic on canvas
site : http://supranaiv.figuration.site.voila.fr
Why do you want the disappearance of painting? You find it boring, don’t you? It does not make any more illusion, does it? It cannot say everything, can it? If painting bores you and gets only one feeling of frustration to you, it is a pity for you. I can’t dissociate painting from the pleasure of the senses obtained by the texture of the coloured pastes or quite simply by the vibration of the colours. This pleasure is not enough to justify the choice of painting like medium and even less the creation of a new movement. Do you find that painting cannot say everything? I agree with you. We never claimed that painting could say everything. We simply said that it was still possible to innovate in painting.
Lets talk about the supposed disappearance of painting! These theses are not new. They are at least fifty years old. It is perhaps young beside the thirty thousand years (at least) of painting. These theories have a taste of heated, which however does not prevent the cultural authorities from dishing them up again in every shape and form. (It is well the proof that they are not new: The institutions always understood art with a time lag). It does not matter! It is not a reason to fall into a sterile squabble, which should be completed only with the death of the one of the combatants. I think that painting , undoubtedly would win. People who paint have never been in so large number . Sure that it is far from being inevitably interesting but among all these painters there is indeed as wrote it Richard Leydier (“La nouvelle peinture et la France “art press n°307 December 2004 )” a pictorial continent to discover.”
In our area (Aquitaine), the caves of Lascaux (where we are living of course!) are not very far from Bordeaux. That is why it happens we leave sometimes our caves. Thus, we could note and take act that the visual arts included many other disciplines that painting. It is really better! Painting it even can integrate photo and digital images. Why should we not indeed live with our time? One always does not see very well what there is the quite new one in the installations, performances or videos. However we are trustful in the inventive capacity human being. All remains thus possible.
I understand less why these techniques that you privilege would declare the end of painting. Would you be afraid by the thought of the maintenance of painting, which makes them suddenly obsolete? Are these techniques so fragile to be able to exist only insofar as the disappearance of the painting? I fear that they do not have any more long time! I tell you just in case that all the speeches on the death of painting did not prevent the blossoming of other movements (in painting). There was in 1980 the “Figuration libre”. Nowadays there is the supra-naive figuration. There is thus still place for the progress of painting whether you like it or no.
Post from Martina Charbonnel ex-forum of art press " la peinture est toujours en mouvement : July 19th Response to “Argents”( forum over)
Photo Martina Charbonnel 2005 "Clairière" 60x80 acrylic on canvas
site : http://supranaiv.figuration.site.voila.fr
About his painting and the movement :
Extracts (1) :
“The supranaive figuration cannot be considered as vagaries of the artistic fashion. It is the result of a long rigorous process, which finds its origin in the history of certain important artistic movements and in our researches, which refer to them.
From the Seventies until the beginning of the Eighties I was very influenced by the painting minimalist like by certain questionings posed by the movement support-surface. My works were oriented about these concepts at that time where Martina Charbonnel joined me.
Right at the beginning of the years 1990, it appears obvious to us that these concepts reached their own limits. Did we continue to work with the same concepts from every angle more? In that case, the risk was to repeat them indefinitely? The “figuration libre” has broken with the minimalism before. As far we are concerned, we didn’t want to deny the conceptual process, which was ours since twenty years .It appears to us that painting would be expressed in another way which would use the mainspring of the minimalist concepts not only applied in the abstraction.
The purpose of the minimalism in painting was totally opposed to any figurative representation of a subject. We chose to integrate its principles when we passed to the figuration. Thus, the minimalism in painting is not only a movement of the past. It can open new perspectives in the figuration. Thus, painting is staying alive. It got nourished from the pictorial experiments of the past while reformulating them and changing them in another direction. That is why painting can continues to progress and to explore increasingly new ways.
But let’s talk more particularly about my painting: As you can see, nothing is further from my painting than aesthetic that you consider yourself as backward-looking. From my abstract period, I kept a new way of painting with a material I have created before: I sow dusts of painting bounded with an acrylic emulsion.
While applying the minimalist constraint to the figuration, the bodies do not escape unhurt: stretched, deformed sometimes burst or in zigzag. Do you really find that naïve? “
(1) ex-forum of art press post of 5 July 2005 (forum over)
Photo Georges Koutsandréou 2005 Bubble Chewing gum" acrylic on canvas
Supranaive figuration is an artistic movement, which writes a new chapter in the painting history. To date, painting never has asserted the synthesis of conceptual painting (Minimalism or Support- Surface) and the figuration. The number of the initiators is of no great importance because it joins together two artistic processes, which are each other very assertive.
Premises of development of this orientation also exist in some artist’s works, but less systematized. Until there is proof to the contrary, the supranaive figuration is the first painting movement of the 21e century.
By considering all attacks undergone by the painting for twenty five years (especially in France), to lay the foundations of a painting movement is more difficult than before. However, Internet facilitates the communication and offers to the movement new possibilities of international development.
In what a painting movement is still useful in our era?
The other artists who choose painting can use a movement as reference points. Historically, the supranaive figuration comes after the "Figuration libre" By the choice of the figuration we seem to ensure a certain extend its continuity. However, the integration of some concepts issues from the minimalist painting with witch "Figuration libre makes a break contradict that continuity.
While posing the principles of the supranaive figuration, we allow the other painters to question themselves about their own pictorial process. They can ignore this movement or adhere to it. They can reject the principle of any painting movement. They can also contradict the figuration supranaive or exceed it. Anyway, we take part in the questioning about painting history.
As regards the unpleasant remarks about our movement, it appears that criticizing people seem to have lost the keys to understanding of a conceptual painting. They give the impression that for them painting has became a dead language.
People who have tried to eliminate painting share the responsibility of the lost understanding of an important part of contemporary painting history. The whole history of the half part of the last century has been influenced by the cultural revisionism. Il seems necessary to explain some essentials points for giving a rudimentary knowledge of the contemporary painting :
From the Renaissance until Matisse, the pictures were painted in perspective ( in three dimensions). Matisse has came back in two-dimensional painting.
The minimalists American painters, Newman, Kelly Noland have continued to paint in two dimensions. However, in their works, the third dimension is suggested by "material" painting coming from space, tracing one or more passages in the rectangle and going out again to space. Without using the trompe-l’oeil techniques, painting expresses three dimensions in only two plans. Of course it cannot be confused with the primitive painting, which is unaware of the third dimension. This is the only way to tackle the contemporary painting. The supranaive figuration can only be understood from those references points.
The only fundamental discovery justifies by itself the proclamation of a new movement.
from the site: http://supranaiv.figuration.site.voila.fr
This texte was in the the forum of the website of "Art press" "La peinture est toujours en mouvement" proposed by Martina Charbonnel : post from G Koutsandréou "Encore plus haut" (25-07-05) "
Photo: Martina Charbonel:2005 "Compassion "63x60 acrylic on canvas
Insofar as the cultural institutions attached an increasingly larger importance to installations, performances and computer art, painting seems to have become an art of the past. However, there never were as many painters today. The question that arises then is to know if this artistic discipline can still innovate. Far from burying painting, the movements that followed one another in the Sixties contributed to its transformation. The return to the figuration of the Eighties shows that painting minimalist did not extinguish the need for figurative representation nor its capacity for renewing itself. For more than ten years, our researches in the figuration prolong the minimalist interrogations in painting or the passage in the white rectangle.
The " Figuration libre" is a rupture with the minimalism.
We choose to integrate it into our pictorial process and we pose the principles founders of a new movement called "figuration supranaive" Why supra-naïve? It is to answer a critic of art who entitled "conceptual naïve her article about Georges Koutsandréou’s exhibition called "Anti-perspective dans l’espace".
Today, we take up the challenge. Can an artistic process be at the same time conceptual and naive? It is one of the questions posed by our movement. By the assertion of new principles in painting, we take part in the continuation of its progression.
January 2005
photo: Martina Charbonnel 2005 "Desir"70x70 acrylic on canvas
from the site http://supranaiv.figuration.site.voila.fr
