The line is busy

Seungduk Kim

The National Museum of Modern Art – Centre Pompidou in Paris, recently held a solo exhibition of François Morellet, “Réinstallations”. This exhibition presented a large number of Morellet’s three dimensional works ranging from the sixties until today. It was his first grand scale exhibition, and considering his age, this could be regarded as a retrospect exhibition. However, it seems like Morellet is still young at heart, open to new experiments in this prestigious (but often pompous) site for the art.

One of the installations is made with blue neon lights thrown in the space and also (some are) arranged on the floor. , (1990) –a palindrome title mirroring itself–, or , (1996) are works reinstalled for this exhibition. These works remind us of the ‘I Ching (Yi King)’ with the lines frozen on the ground before forming any divination sign. The divination drawing process has been interrupted and shown as frozen lines of neon lights. Those strayed lines also remind us of Bob Dylan’s song, ‘A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall’, showcased in 1963. The worst nightmares warned about in this song have become a reality today.

Morellet’s journey into the abstract led him to look beyond the simple arrangement of land and color, or of lines and volumes. Abstraction has nurtured the history of modern art with tension, forcing accurate feelings or sometimes out-dated attitudes. From the history of abstraction, geometric abstraction has been a constant theme of numerous artists from all over the world since the early nineteen-tens and twenties. The earliest it can be traced to is in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Switzerland, Northern Europe and Italy. It was then later witnessed in North and South America and also in Asia slightly later.

Among the geometrical abstraction, the ''programmed'' one has been explored and experimented all around the world. The concept was to have a preconceived notion of composition based on simple structures and simple proceedings. In this regard, creating a painting meant making a method of composition initiated by a ''program'' that could be told with few words.

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s pivotal work, (1923) could be regarded as so-called programmed abstraction. This work was made in Berlin, and Moholy-Nagy dictated the paintings' specifications over a telephone (a relatively new invention at that time) to workers in a sign factory. Three paintings were made with the same pattern but in different sizes. The telephone allowed Moholy-Nagy not to use his own hand. Because the paintings were executed by factory workers, it echoes and reinforces the common statement of modern art: art doesn't require a specific skill. This is partially true, but, on the other hand, it requires keen intelligence and an accurate use of new technologies.

When executing programmed abstraction, the work shouldn't require too many decisions. First, one has to select a square, single dimensional canvas. Secondly, use industrial paint. Thirdly, use squares and straight lines. Lastly, limit colors to one or two. The rest depends upon your creativity and following your inspirations; at least there is still room for feelings and emotions.

Morellet’s trip to Brazil in 1951 was critical to him. There, he narrowly missed an exhibition of Swiss painter and designer Max Bill - but Morellet was able to see some photos of the exhibition and hear about it. With this trip to Brazil, Morellet, a French artist could indirectly get to know a particular way of treating and enjoying abstraction of post-war Latin America. What a sign of the pre-globalized world! I still think that such a seminal encounter with this so-called "Kalte Kunst" (cold art) in a tropical country like Brazil may give some key to understanding Morellet's works, which are detached from the academic teachings that emphasize codified non-objective art. Brazilian art shows a mix of vernacular afro-American culture hugely influenced by European modernism; as in roughly speaking, voodoo child met Swiss concrete poetry.

Morellet adopted randomness and is playful with words. His acute sense of self-parody constantly comes back to and refers to his own works and ideas, then twists them in a humorous deconstructionist style.

Surprisingly, it has been told that, until recently, Morellet used to repaint his own works to refresh them; for example, he would often change a white background into a yellowish tone in the 80s.

Constructing and deconstructing is a way of getting rid of boredom, to avoid falling into the dangerous conservatism of the avant-garde. Radical paintings –whenever and whatever was brought together– have a feeling of self-confidence and a tinge of authoritarian style.

Morellet has been a black sheep even in his best periods, and he escaped from the regular Swiss sons of Constructivists, to become a free mind. He established curvilinear elements when the straight angles and squares were the latest trend. He used tree branches, neon lights and curse words when strict and sleek-finishes were dominant. From this, we can see François Morellet has taken and expressed a heretical motto with a number of large canvases, installations and sculpted works.

Bringing Morellet to Korea is a real challenge, as Korea has been the land of an official modernist avant-garde art, influenced by monochromism alongside hues of oriental philosophy. Even when abstraction was squeezed into chapels and churches, with an attempt to provide a solid ground of spirituality and a religious side-product to such aims, it never really ushered in a promising future: it was only temporarily expedient.

With this exhibition, the Korean abstract art field will enjoy those delirious painted surfaces by Morellet, comprised of squares and circles designed accordingly to some mysterious mathematical formula that he devised. This simplified formula is based on odd and even numbers, parallel lines and crossing surfaces.

The range of works that will be hung in Gallery Hyundai in Seoul will allow viewers to have glimpse at only part of Morellet’s production, yet some of the paintings in this exhibition will provide a great initiation to further scrutinize Morellet’s world.

I will briefly quote a series of works done in 1961: . The title in English is 40000 squares spread over according to the odd and even numbers of a telephone book. This work shows a square canvas which has been divided into 40000 regular and equal squares that are painted in two colors. The colors were chosen according to the random suite of odd and even numbers of a telephone book. Odd numbers fill up the squares in black while even numbers make them red.

When a target has large numbers, random choice is still properly balanced, which means, if we count red and black squares, the ratio of odd (black squares) and even numbers (red squares) is approximately 50/50. The method is simple and not contradictable, but the outcome of the finished work shows a kinetic-art like production, which was fashionable at that time. It is amazing to see that a method –a priori far from any composition style– is producing the mood of the time, the aesthetics of the period, even though he was unwilling to do this.

This work could be cited as a representative work of Morellet’s whole oeuvre. It reflects his way of constructing a painting, and is still effective and valid even now.