Sorbonne Artgallery

TRAVIOLES AND APPROXIMATIONS       

 

          One day, a few years ago, a leading figure in the art world told me, responding to a file I had sent him just to have the opportunity to meet him, that he would be very surprised if we could base a painter’s approach on both American minimalism and surface supports.

          This opinion intrigued me at first, then finally led me to commit myself to the certainty, at least almost, that everything was precisely possible between these two «movements», even outside or around.

Although very well placed to know, this important character could not but ignore that I drew the elements of my reflection as much from Duchamp as from Matisse, without forgetting the Viennese Actionism neither Fluxus nor the Land art or BMPT.

            One day, a few years ago, a leading figure in the art world told me, responding to a file I had sent him just to have the opportunity to meet him, that he would be very surprised if we could base a painter’s approach on both American minimalism and surface supports.
       I think that’s when I realized that the disciplinary obsession of categories was a really damaging handicap for artists, especially in France.
        About thirty-five years after this episode, I also realize how much the obsession of commentary on has built a very particular approach and diffusion of art.

Basically, these two obsessions bring art, its diffusion and its reception to a simple cultural mode, of which we know quite well today the progressive shift towards entertainment.
            Thus, by categorizing, disciplining and commenting, we have probably favoured (at least) two kinds of art. That of an ever more speculative market (thanks to Thatcher and Saatchi) and that of a «small» market, if not a non-market - condemning artists to live as rock stars or to survive sparingly rather than to really live from their art.

            Personally, I have nothing to complain about. I am not interested in success, nor in the market, nor in survival.
            What brings me to the workshop, to the extent that I have ideas to do a few things, is simply my life.
            I don’t know what I’m for. I don’t know what I’m for.

           All I know is that I only do something when it’s necessary, one way or another.Of course, after all these years of doing things, I can almost understand what I have deployed, following a more or less conductive thread. But I am convinced that I have not really programmed anything. Worse, I have always refused to even project anything. For personal freedom, no doubt.

           Freedom that obviously does not exist.But freedom that I need to imagine myself to «suspend» reflection, theory, history, culture, to do, finally, something. To perform a job.
            So every session at the workshop requires a real precondition. The idea is never to do something half or about. It’s about time. It’s about time. It’s about day-to-day and long-term. And I’m running out of time.

            For me, artistic work is at this price.
            To reject the market as it has become and to refuse to burst the open mouth for art as it has become in its condition of existence.
            We are not going to sell works like common tin cans, are we - nor commit suicide because we are not recognized for its true value.

           Another possibility, if we are not happy, remains of course to do something other than art.
            Of course, it’s all very rough and a little rough, as it should be.

 

Jérôme Dupin

Janvier 2017