François Morellet

From Sep 23 to Oct 23 2004

Relatively unknown in Brazil, François Morellet's work is essential for all of those who value clever, precise and lyrical oeuvres. It is a rare opportunity that should not be missed. Besides, there are huge similarities between his poetic and the Constructive segment of Brazilian contemporary art. He even recalls that it was here, on his first visit to Brazil in the early 1950s, that he met the concrete work of the Swiss artist Max Bill and his Brazilian heirs, which deeply impressed him.

From that moment, the artist's fascination for geometric abstraction and the many variables involved in its playful exploration took off. What most intrigues us in his paintings is the way he departs from a conceptual premise and transforms it into a formal possibility. The result is always surprising and does not become domesticated by the concept that spawned it. This happens not only in his paintings, but also in the installations carried out from 1960 onwards in various urban interventions. We know that there are "40,000 squares according to the odd and even numbers from a phonebook," but the resulting canvas strikes our retina and excites our eyes, independently of what we deduce, or not, of that conceptual piece.

The first phase of his work could be included within a Brazilian concrete art exhibition. There is an optical pulse in some parts of that work that closely dialogues with Abraham Palatnik and Almir Mavignier. The kinetic appeal, the constructive rigor and the playful disposition individualise these works that had its insertion on the European scene in the 1960s, but were eventually ? and unfairly ? shadowed, by the hegemony of American art.

Morellet 's work anticipates many issues, procedures and materials subsequently enshrined by the minimalism and conceptual art. Having done before is not what matters most, but the grace and formal intensity rarely achieved by his American counterparts. Sol Lewitt, for example, whose geometric structuring competes in accuracy with that of Morellet, frequently ends hostage of the conceptual premise without the surprise as a result of the formalisation process.

The focus on the optical phenomenon, synthesized in the formula that art is only what it is seen on it, common to the minimalists and Morellet, sought to redefine the expectations and forms of artistic reception. Every subjective prerogative and any kind of creative spontaneity were challenged. Art should be a plastic exercise that potentiates our perceptual acuity. As noted by the artist himself in 1958, "we are persuaded to think that we can extract not only a deep aesthetic pleasure from the simplest relations (between geometric elements, for example), but also have a cumulative understanding of our own aesthetic feeling". A phrase that could have been easily extracted from Neo-Concrete manifest.

The planar displacement for the space led his work close to the architecture and the city. His urban designs are gorgeous. The same precision and the same ability to produce optical effect and poetic surprise in the paintings can be seen everywhere. At times, humour passes through the geometric austerity. Arguably, it is a witty work. It is a forgotten simplicity.

Luiz Camillo Osorio