Promenades d'amateurs - NMNM - Nouveau Musée National de Monaco

Promenades d’amateurs is a meeting between a collector and an artist. A meeting informed by works: from advertising posters to the typography of books, ancient and modern alike, from the writings of Guillevic to Toroni’s paintings of brush imprints. A personal look – that of the artist Loïc Le Groumellec – at a private collection presenting, his own works and those of Chris Burden, Mark Francis, Gérard Gasiorowski, Peter Joseph, Jonathan Lasker, Robert Mangold, Joyce Pensato, Yves Peyré, Raymond Savignac, Niele Toroni, Bernard Villemot and Lawrence Weiner.

One of the characteristics common to the artists selected by our ‘art lovers’ is that they have worked with a small number of resources and themes, whether through a minimalist or conceptualist approach. This is the case with the artist at the heart of the exhibition, Loïc Le Groumellec. Since 1980, his vocabulary has consisted of just two elements – megaliths and houses, sometimes topped with crosses. These elements are constantly reworked, and radiate the same feeling of strangeness and immutability. He has chosen Guillevic’s verses to provide the rhythm for the exhibition.

By 1966, in a radical move, Niele Toroni decided that he would paint only a single, identical imprint of a paintbrush, repeated infinitely. He never varies his approach, giving himself a choice only in terms of colour. During the same period, Robert Mangold, an exponent of abstract minimalism, began to work with simple geometric shapes. Like Toroni, he never varies his approach.

At almost the same time, Lawrence Weiner, disappointed with the reception of one of his pieces by some students who destroyed it, concluded that a work does not necessarily have to be realised, and published a collection of potential works. He made the transition from minimalism to conceptualism. Language became the medium, the definition was sufficient to constitute the work.

Chris Burden offers another vision of what is possible. In the 1970s, he opted to create objects (like the B-Car, a lightweight vehicle) and installations in the form of voyages where technology was mixed with political reflection. Thus, a new generation was to position itself beyond purely visual concerns. Mark Francis took scientific imagery as his basis, Peter Joseph works within self-imposed structures and parameters.
On the sidelines, Joyce Pensato constantly examined the icons of popular US culture, while Jonathan Lasker found his own innovative and entirely unique visual language
Extract from Jim Palette’s text written on the occasion of the exhibition

In the videoroom, Si un jour tu vois qu’une pierre te sourit…, a sound and visual creation by Pauline de Coulhac confronts poems or extracts by Guillevic to Loïc Le Groumellec’s work as a complementary approach around a shared territory, that of Carnac in Brittany and its surroundings

Ciel vague 25, with a text by Yves Peyré and illustrations by Loïc Le Groumellec has been published on the occasion of the exhibition by Pagina d’Arte, Switzerland.

In La Table des Matières on the ground floor of Villa Paloma, two photographs by Brancusi dating from 1922 and recently acquired by the NMNM are shown. The two photographs depicting Lizica Codreanu demonstrate the skilful staging by Brancusi in his studio and his desire to capture a movement through the photographic lens.

Curators : Marie-Claude Beaud and Loïc Le Groumellec

RELATED CONTENTS

Promenades d’amateurs EVENTS

Jérôme Magail EVENTS