Marine Hugonnier
15 Sep - 26 Oct 2011
MARINE HUGONNIER
Coverage (blue cyan green yellow red magenta black)
15 September - 26 October, 2011
NoguerasBlanchard is pleased to announce the exhibition Coverage (Blue Cyan Green Yellow Red Magenta Black) by Marine Hugonnier. This exhibition presents collages made on vintage Spanish newspapers from the 1960’s until today, lending continuity to her renowned series Art for Modern Architecture. The artist introduces a temporal dimension to the exhibition space by changing the work each day thus creating 26 different works during the 29 days of the exhibition.
This series Art for Modern Architecture began with collages made with cut-outs from the book Line, Form, Color (1951) by Ellsworth Kelly, applied on the front pages of vintage newspapers. The American artist defended the argument that art should be made for public spaces emphasizing the modernist utilitarian project of art at the service of modern architecture. In Art for Modern Architecture, Hugonnier prolongates Kelly’s ideas, introducing them to a new medium, the printed newspaper. The photographs featured on the front pages of the newspapers are replaced by Kelly’s abstract visual language, whose universality is opposed to the specificity of the news headlines, thus neutralising the images with forms without content and monochrome colours. In 2009, Hugonnier began to use paper that had been silk-screen printed with colours from the Kodak grey card: cyan, violet, magenta, red, black, yellow, and green. These colours are the standard ones used in photomechanical reproduction. The artist thus formalizes an image in potential, recalling the viewer’s memory and a collective consciousness. This “coverage” principal therefore works as an open door to a cultural and emotional ground.
The newspaper headlines are both national and international. The events featured were not chosen by the artist; the are not the result of a historiographical study, rather, they are what the artist was able to find through her research. By discovering what the Spanish felt was relevant to keep, the artist reveals a collective consciousness. In this way, the intention is not to write an official history where certain aspects or ideologies are favoured; the fact of cancelling out the images with Kelly’s pictorial compositions acquires greater significance due to the fact that he used to proclaim that his paintings’ clear geometric shapes did not require the effort of interpretation, and that the images were to refer to themselves, without representation.
Beyond the beauty of the printed image and the precise geometric compositions, the essence of these works stems from an anachronism established between the viewer’s present, the collages, and the past of the documents. By referencing newspaper imagery and rupturing narrative structure by presenting it day by day, Hugonnier investigates the reality of the viewer’s memory, be it a cultural ground, or an imaginary landscape.
Other artworks in the Art for Modern Architecture series have previously been shown at important venues worldwide including the 52nd Venice Biennale, Italy (2007); MoMA/New York, USA (2011); Kunsthaus Graz, Austria 2008); Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona, Spain (2011).
Hugonnier has recently presented solo shows at FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France (2009); Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2009); Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany (2009); Musée D’Art Moderne et Contemporain MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland (2009); S.M.A.K. Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gent, Belgium (2007); Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA (2007); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino, Italy (2007); and Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2007).
The artist would like to thank the collaboration of: A la Premsa d’aquell Dia, Zaida Trallero, Grégoire Pujade Laurraine, Segolene Walle and Marion Chamoral.
Marine Hugonnier (París, 1969) lives in Paris.
Coverage (blue cyan green yellow red magenta black)
15 September - 26 October, 2011
NoguerasBlanchard is pleased to announce the exhibition Coverage (Blue Cyan Green Yellow Red Magenta Black) by Marine Hugonnier. This exhibition presents collages made on vintage Spanish newspapers from the 1960’s until today, lending continuity to her renowned series Art for Modern Architecture. The artist introduces a temporal dimension to the exhibition space by changing the work each day thus creating 26 different works during the 29 days of the exhibition.
This series Art for Modern Architecture began with collages made with cut-outs from the book Line, Form, Color (1951) by Ellsworth Kelly, applied on the front pages of vintage newspapers. The American artist defended the argument that art should be made for public spaces emphasizing the modernist utilitarian project of art at the service of modern architecture. In Art for Modern Architecture, Hugonnier prolongates Kelly’s ideas, introducing them to a new medium, the printed newspaper. The photographs featured on the front pages of the newspapers are replaced by Kelly’s abstract visual language, whose universality is opposed to the specificity of the news headlines, thus neutralising the images with forms without content and monochrome colours. In 2009, Hugonnier began to use paper that had been silk-screen printed with colours from the Kodak grey card: cyan, violet, magenta, red, black, yellow, and green. These colours are the standard ones used in photomechanical reproduction. The artist thus formalizes an image in potential, recalling the viewer’s memory and a collective consciousness. This “coverage” principal therefore works as an open door to a cultural and emotional ground.
The newspaper headlines are both national and international. The events featured were not chosen by the artist; the are not the result of a historiographical study, rather, they are what the artist was able to find through her research. By discovering what the Spanish felt was relevant to keep, the artist reveals a collective consciousness. In this way, the intention is not to write an official history where certain aspects or ideologies are favoured; the fact of cancelling out the images with Kelly’s pictorial compositions acquires greater significance due to the fact that he used to proclaim that his paintings’ clear geometric shapes did not require the effort of interpretation, and that the images were to refer to themselves, without representation.
Beyond the beauty of the printed image and the precise geometric compositions, the essence of these works stems from an anachronism established between the viewer’s present, the collages, and the past of the documents. By referencing newspaper imagery and rupturing narrative structure by presenting it day by day, Hugonnier investigates the reality of the viewer’s memory, be it a cultural ground, or an imaginary landscape.
Other artworks in the Art for Modern Architecture series have previously been shown at important venues worldwide including the 52nd Venice Biennale, Italy (2007); MoMA/New York, USA (2011); Kunsthaus Graz, Austria 2008); Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona, Spain (2011).
Hugonnier has recently presented solo shows at FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France (2009); Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2009); Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany (2009); Musée D’Art Moderne et Contemporain MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland (2009); S.M.A.K. Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gent, Belgium (2007); Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA (2007); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino, Italy (2007); and Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2007).
The artist would like to thank the collaboration of: A la Premsa d’aquell Dia, Zaida Trallero, Grégoire Pujade Laurraine, Segolene Walle and Marion Chamoral.
Marine Hugonnier (París, 1969) lives in Paris.