Adrian Sutton is pleased to present Lamentable Ø4m50 bleu (2006), a virtual-only exhibition of a single exceptional artwork by the late French artist François Morellet (1926-2016), on display from 8th July – 3rd September 2021.
The luminosity of neon combined with the use of colour enabled Morellet to create artworks that had a fundamental enigmatic quality, allowing spontaneity and importantly an element of playfulness, often reflected in his chosen titles. Lamentable Ø4m50 bleu is no exception, neon tubes appear suspended in the air, their form lending themselves to many different configurations, embracing elements of randomness and chance. Morellet strove to produce art that was accessible to all, he was fascinated and interested in the viewers interaction with the work free from meaning beyond its immediate existence. ‘All my work is about doing as little as possible and making the fewest possible arbitrary decisions.’– François Morellet.
As you can see with Lamentable Ø4m50 bleu, his works offer the presence of their material reality, all the components of this installation, its neon tubes etc, are connected to each other by electric cables and joined to power transformers, are deliberately visible and form an integral part of all Morellet’s works. His works offer the presence of their material reality and a novel and unparalleled exploration of the visual world.
Morellet was one of the first post-war artists to explore geometric abstraction. He followed simple systems and rules and his playful use of materials lead him to explore beyond the confines of the picture plane to create architectural structures. Morellet was stimulated by kinetic experiments in the context of the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV) in Paris in the 1960s; an experimental artist’s collaborative he founded along with ten other opto-kinetic artists. The group sought to actively engage the viewer through immersive, multi-sensory installations, often using various types of artificial light.
“We were passionate about modern materials that hadn’t yet been ‘polluted’ by traditional art. We particularly liked anything that could produce movement or light.” – François Morellet.
Morellet was born in Cholet, France in 1926, where he lived and worked until his passing at the age of 90 in 2016. His work has been included in a number of landmark group exhibitions including Documenta, Kassel, Germany (1964 [with GRAV], 1968, and 1977), and the Venice Biennale (1970 and 1990). In 1971 his first solo museum exhibition was organized by Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands and toured throughout Europe. Other major retrospectives of Morellet’s work include; Nationalgalerie, Berlin (1977); the Centre Pompidou, Paris (1986 and 2011) and the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris (2000 – 2001). In 2010, Morellet was the second artist to exhibit in his lifetime at the Louvre Museum with the inauguration of a permanent site-specific installation titled ‘L’esprit d’escalier’ and in 2017, the DIA Art Foundation presented a major survey of Morellet’s work in the United States. His work is represented in major public collections worldwide including the Centre Pompidou; Dia Art Foundation; Hirshorn Sculpture Garden; Los Angeles Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Seoul Museum of Art; Tate Modern; Tel Aviv Museum; Kunsthaus Zurich and the Nationalgalerie Berlin.
François Morellet
Lamentable Ø4m50 bleu, 2006
Blue neon
Dimensions variable
Cat Rais / Artist Ref No.: 06030
Edition 1 of 3
This is the second presentation from a series of planned exhibitions solely focussing on showing a single exceptional artwork at any one time. The artwork is available for sale via VSPACE, from 8th July 2021.