“Pliage”, 1971, Oil on canvas 140cm x 90cm by André-Pierre Arnal at
Galerie de l’Europe, Supports/Surface, etc….

At the exhibition openings I usually go to the guests are normally there to drink the free wine, I’ve never been to an opening where the guests actually have enough spare cash to buy one of the paintings, well there was one but that’s another story. The other thing that was strange was that everybody had really dressed up, this might surprise you but in Paris it’s not often you see high-heels, matching handbags and eye make-up. Generally everyone seems to stick to one of two looks, ‘casual’ or ‘classic’. As the bling started to add up I came to realise this might be quite a special occasion.

Understandably, I felt a little out of place at first but was quickly made to feel at ease by a warm welcome from the artist himself who was keen to explain his work and the ideas behind it. The stereotype of the shy, tortured artist isdefinitely a myth, especially in Paris. André-Pierre Arnal is a fiery but friendly Mediterranean. He started painting in 1961, driven by what he describes as a “rage of expression”.
Shamefully, I didn’t know much about Arnal or his work before the exhibitionand finding out more revealed why everyone had made such an effort. The starting block for his career was his involvement in the Supports/Surface movement. In existence from 1969 to 1972, the movement’s manifesto wasto create art that focused exclusively on the materials themselves, forbidding references to anything outside this. The artwork had to be autonomous of anything outside it such as the personality of the artist and the time in which it was created. The aim of this was to free the work of the interpretations or dreams of the viewer. The Centre Pompidou has a room dedicated to the Supports/Surface movement on the fourth floor.

Much of Arnal’s work in the exhibition achieved the objectives of the Supports/surface movement. His pictures are striking and memorable but they didn’t spark off anything in my imagination. This wasn’t just because the were abstract shapes, even when looking at Rothko, the king of abstract, images such as a sunset, window or green flat landscape often flash into your head. Yet with Arnal….nope nothing.
Instead, your brain takes a different route, it starts analysing how these pictures are made, doing mental gymnastics in order to re-construct what you see in front of  you, unpeeling layer upon layer of paint, examining the thickness of the paper or cotton it is painted on. This meditative process almost leaves you with the feeling that you are the artist.

(Image – © 2011 André-Pierre Arnal – Galerie de l’Europe, September 2011 All Rights Reserved)