Coinciding with its 10th anniversary, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Buenos Aires | The Aldo Rubino Foundation presents for the first time in Argentina the work of the remarkable Claude Viallat (France, 1936). The exhibition brings the local public closer and brings to the forefront an avant-garde trend that emerged in the south of France in the mid-1930s. ’60s, and until the early ’70s. Support/Surfaces (Supports/Surfaces), almost unknown in these latitudes, sought to discover the essence of painting through the analysis of its components and abstract art. Viallat is one of the founders and supporters of this movement, along with Louis Cane, Marc Devade, Daniel Dezeuze, Patrick Saytour and André Valensi.The artist, who lives in Nimes, considers painting itself as “the image of work”.
Curated by Marie Sophie Lemoine, the “Freedom of Colors” retrospective displays the most representative pieces of Viallat. Also a tribute to the great French colorists, such as Henri Matisse, the 80 great paintings brought from France completely inhabit the stripped-down space of the MACBA. In the paintings, the artist’s interest in fabrics, colors, designs and his rejection of any narrative or figurative form is verified. They are painted on all kinds of flexible surfaces, such as sheets, canvas, nets, used fabrics, umbrellas, tents, printed fabrics, ropes; some objects and assemblies made with recovered materials are included. The curator highlights the vibration and play between the colors and the fresh strokes of Viallat’s painting, who “for more than 60 years has been composing a universe that bursts with color, leaving traces of his universal poetry in space and weather”.
The Museum, created and built by the collector Aldo Rubino, is devoted to abstract art, with an emphasis on geometry. It develops an extensive cultural extension program with courses in art, music, cinema and more; it shares a party wall with the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires.
