Claude Viallat at Venet Foundation, Le Muy, France
Now one of the key sites of artistic summer tours, the Venet Foundation in Provence hosts an exhibition, in a dazzling array of colors, of the painted tarpaulins of Claude Viallat. An interview with the site’s director, Alexandre Devals.
L’OFFICIEL ART: Since 2014, the Venet Foundation has hosted annual exhibitions around a program of the great names of French and international art. What are your views on these past six years of activity?
ALEXANDRE DEVALS: I alternate between joy and dissatisfaction. Since you’ve asked me to think back on it, I remember our excitement before each project. We did not imagine in the first year that institutions like the Tinguely Museum and the Mamac, or estates like Fred Sandback or Yves Klein, would trust us. When we inaugurated the foundation by building Frank Stella’s first architecture, we could not have imagined that two years later we would build one of James Turrell’s Skyspaces. We have made progress in welcoming the public, but much remains to be done. We would like to develop publications related to the exhibitions... Our operation is still quite traditional, which is moreover what makes it charming. We were able to show a diversity of artists with the same level of quality, to introduce them to local audiences, and to renew the way of looking at their work for the international art-lovers who visit us. In this respect, Claude Viallat’s exhibition plays an important role.
The exhibition devoted to Claude Viallat sheds light on a series of twenty works made from the late 1970s on military tarpaulins. What is the origin of this series and how does it fit into the artist’s production?
At the end of the 1970s, Jean-Louis Froment invited Claude Viallat to exhibit in the immense space of the CAPC, and asked him on what material he dreamed about working. Viallat answered “a circus tent”, and Froment sent him a truck of military tarpaulins. At first disconcerted by the very connoted color, Viallat completely covered the tarpaulins with paint. Then he remembered the drawings of the Avignon fauve artist Augan Chabaud on greenish butcher paper, and allowed himself to reclaim this color. The result is a series of works of unprecedented visual power, in which Viallat generalized the use of polychromy, with registers that make shapes dance in all directions. We thus rediscover Viallat’s power as a painter and colorist in formats so large that they far exceed those of the Americans. This is the CAPC series that we are showing. It is created almost fifteen years after the form’s first appearance: enough time to absorb the avantgarde, and to offer a break toward a formal and chromatic liberation that can be observed in many of Viallat’s contemporaries: Frank Stella, Sol LeWitt, François Morellet, Daniel Buren, Bernar Venet...
Exhibited in an area of five hectares, the works of Bernar Venet and of the artists whose works he has collected over the years, have here a rare opportunity to fully express themselves. How has this collection evolved, and what are the plans for its development?
The collection, the major part of which was constituted in the 1960s and 1970s by Bernar Venet’s friends—artists of his generation—has been considerably expanded over the last five years, particularly with land acquisitions. We were able to dedicate the right bank of the Nartuby to the assembled collection, to complete the ensembles we had from Robert Morris, Richard Long, Sol LeWitt... and to develop the collection with works by Larry Bell (created for the Foundation), Philip King, and Richard Deacon... The Foundation now spreads over 6 hectares. And the expansion continues...
“Claude Viallat”, Venet Foundation, Le Muy, France, till 13 September.