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    • What we owe Georges Mathieu
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    • Georges Mathieu, the inventor of performance art
  • Posts
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    • Évanescence (1945)
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  • Georges Mathieu in brief

    Founder of Lyrical Abstraction, inventor of performance art, pioneer of Action Painting, speed and risk, dripping, early inspirer of street art

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    Georges Mathieu


    Open


    To the applause in the @BonhamsFrance saleroom, the exceptional three-metre-long Exil de Go Daïgo dans l'île d'Oki (The Exile of Go Daigo in the Island of Oki), (1957) by Georges Mathieu, never seen on the market nor on French soil, was sold for €1,182,375, a record in France for a work by the artist. ⠀ Exil de Go Daïgo dans l'île d'Oki was created by #GeorgesMathieu in a Tokyo classroom of Sōfū Teshigahara, the founder of the Sogetsu-Ryu school of Ikebana. That same month the Gutai Art Association exhibited it in Tokyo and Osaka. It then entered the collection of Jirō Yoshihara, the founder and “father” of the #Gutai movement. ⠀ Edouard Lombard, Director of the Georges Mathieu Committee, commented: “‘Exil de Go Daïgo dans l'île d’Oki’ is not only a work that bears fervent witness to the famous trip of Mathieu to Japan in 1957 and more generally to the abstract calligraphy developed by the Master in the 1950s, but is also the stirring incarnation, through the identity of its first owner Jirō Yoshihara, founder and theorist of the Gutai movement, of the historical influence that Mathieu had on this movement, with Yoshihara professing in the Gutai manifesto: ‘the greatest respect for Pollock and Mathieu because their works reveal the howl of matter, the screams of pigments and varnishes.’” ⠀ 3rd photo, left to right: Peggy Guggenheim, Jirō Yoshihara, Yoko Ono (reading a book), Michio Yoshihara (standing over her), Atsuko Tanaka (standing next to him), David Tudor and John Cage (seen from behind) on October 17th, 1962. ⠀ 🇫🇷 « “Exil de Go Daïgo dans l’île d’Oki” est non seulement une œuvre qui témoigne de fervente manière du célèbre voyage de Mathieu au Japon en 1957 et plus largement de la calligraphie abstraite développée par le Maître dans les années 1950, elle est aussi l’émouvante incarnation, de par l’identité de son premier propriétaire Jirō Yoshihara, fondateur et théoricien du mouvement Gutaï, de l’influence historique qu’a eue Mathieu sur ce mouvement, Yoshihara professant dans le manifeste de l’art Gutaï “le plus grand respect pour Pollock et Mathieu car leurs œuvres révèlent le hurlement poussé par la matière, les cris des pigments et des vernis.” »


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    [français👇🏻] #GeorgesMathieu left us 10 years ago. If he would have undoubtedly been sensitive to the fact that his funeral had the rare honor of being celebrated in the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, under the auspices of Viollet-le-Duc's spire, now also gone, it would have been even more important for him to see the new look given to his work these last five years. ⠀ Mathieu's work is once again successful outside of France, with foreign collectors from Hong Kong to New York to Shanghai. ⠀ Art historians are finally taking on the task of studying, describing and recognizing his essential contribution to the history of post-war art (his early informal paintings, the organization of the first Lyrical Abstraction exhibitions, the link he proposed between New York and Parisian abstractions, his numerous critical and theoretical essays) and his innovations (his international tours, his performances in front of large audiences, the variety of his techniques, from dripping to tubing, his all-out promotion of the applied arts). _________________ ⠀ Georges Mathieu nous a quittés il y a dix ans. S’il aurait sans nul doute été sensible à ce que ses obsèques ont eu le rare honneur d’être célébrées en la cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, sous les auspices de la flèche de Viollet-le-Duc désormais elle aussi disparue, il lui aurait plus encore tenu à cœur de constater le regard nouveau porté sur son œuvre ces cinq dernières années. ⠀ L’œuvre de Mathieu rencontre à nouveau le succès en dehors des frontières françaises, auprès de collectionneurs étrangers, de Hong Kong à New York en passant par Shanghai. ⠀ Les historiens d’art s’attellent enfin à la tâche d’étudier, de décrire et de reconnaître son apport essentiel à l’histoire de l’art d’après-guerre (ses premières peintures informelles, l’organisation des premières expositions d’Abstraction lyrique, le lien qu’il proposait entre les abstractions de New York et celles de Paris, ses nombreux essais critiques et théoriques) et ses innovations (ses tournées internationales, ses performances devant de larges publics, la variété de ses techniques, du dripping au tubisme, sa promotion tous azimuts des arts appliqués).


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    𝗦𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗙𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝗮𝗻𝘃𝗮𝘀: 𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗲𝘂 Great review by @DavidEbony in @ArtInAmerica / @ArtNews ⠀ “A precursor to Happenings and performance art, and an intriguing example of asemic writing—which resembles language but does not carry meaning—the work of French painter Georges Mathieu (1921–2012) was both influential and prescient. Yet Mathieu’s achievements have largely faded from view, at least within the United States. This remarkable New York survey, featuring some thirty-six major works filling two venues [@galerieperrotin & @nahmadcontemporary], marks the artist’s centenary. […] Mathieu often titled his works after medieval or pre–French Revolution battles, as with The Victory of Denain (1963), one of several stunning examples at Perrotin. Here, against a hazy, stained, coffee-hued background—modulated from deep umber on the lower right to muted beige on the upper left—thick, slashing brushstrokes of red, white, and blue thrust from left to right, traversing the central portion of the twenty-three-foot-wide canvas. In palette and composition, the work recalls Jean Alaux’s 1839 painting of the same subject, which depicts a 1712 French victory in the War of the Spanish Succession. In Mathieu’s painting, and in many of his other epic-scale compositions, he abstracts and critiques the tradition of grandiose history painting. The intensity of Mathieu’s gestures, and the resultant complex, layered cursive, also evokes wildstyle graffiti and certain works that Futura and Rammellzee produced in the 1980s. […] In a stark composition like First Avenue (1957, at Perrotin), featuring only a few convulsive splashes and drips of white tossed at the center of a pitch-black background, with several poignant red slashing lines at upper right, Mathieu directly responds to the New York School of Pollock and Franz Kline, as a representative of Paris’s own brand of testosterone-driven, postwar angst.” ⠀ #GeorgesMathieu #LyricalAbstraction


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    Repost from @galerieperrotin Timeless Talents ⠀ In 1952, The @NYTimes called Georges Mathieu, “one of the most fervid of contemporary French abstractionists,” and in 1954, the newspaper affirmed him an abstract expressionist as powerful in Paris as Willem de Kooning is for Manhattan. ⠀ Despite Mathieu’s ardent popularity at the onset of his career and the extensive acquisition of his paintings by major American and European museums early on, the artist has largely been overlooked in recent decades—his last major exhibition in the United States took place forty-two years ago in New York. ⠀ Through October 23rd—we invite visitors to explore the artist’s work at our New York gallery and also @NahmadContemporary to gain new understanding of this underestimated pioneer. — #GeorgesMathieu #LyricalAbstraction #NahmadContemporary #PerrotinNewYork #Perrotin — Georges Mathieu, Paris, Capital of the Arts, 1965. Oil on canvas. 300 × 900 cm | 118 1/8 × 354 5/16 inch. © Comité Georges Mathieu / ADAGP / Perrotin.


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    Artnet News: “Georges Mathieu Was a Star of Postwar Art—and Then Disappeared. Here’s Why Top Galleries Are Investing Big to Revive His Market” ⠀ 𝗥𝗲𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗲𝘂 French artist Georges Mathieu diverted from the geometrical abstractions dominating the previous era by forging a visual language that favored form over content and gesture over intent, and harnessed uninhibited creative expression. ⠀ "In the beginning, his flair for showmanship, forays into commercial art, and celebration by powerful French figures all helped catapult Mathieu to fame in the 1950s and ’60s. Then, those same factors contributed to his backslide, particularly in the U.S.,” said Eileen Kinsella of @Artnet. ⠀ @OlivierFau, Sotheby’s head of private sales for Europe, said that he and his colleagues “began to chase Mathieu’s work because we were absolutely convinced of the quality of the work and that it was undervalued,” he said, especially compared to other postwar European artists. ⠀ Mathieu’s painting “really speaks for itself,” said @Etienne_Sallon, Christie’s head of the evening sale in Paris. “It’s very gestural, colorful, and powerful. You can enjoy them directly,” without elaborate explanation. ⠀ “He is the first to paint live as a performance, that is one of his most important art historical contributions. This had a profound influence on Yves Klein,” said Nahmad Contemporary owner Joe Nahmad. ⠀ “It has been gratifying to witness the reevaluation of Mathieu’s practice, especially as a French dealer,” gallery owner @EmmanuelPerrotin told Artnet News. “We are finally, after many years, beginning to see a shift in recognition, especially with crucial institutional support.” ⠀ This exhibition offers a unique opportunity to reintroduce Mathieu’s work and interpret the development of his art and his legacy with a fresh perspective—it runs at @GaleriePerrotin NY and at @NahmadContemporary through Oct 23rd. ⠀ — Georges Mathieu, Port-Royal, 1964 Oil on canvas 65 x 116 cm | 25 9/16 x 45 11/16 inch. © Comité Georges Mathieu, ADAGP ; Perrotin. #GeorgesMathieu #LyricalAbstraction #NahmadContemporary #PerrotinNewYork #Perrotin


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    From Paul Laster: George’s Mathieu’s magnificent mark-making, on view in his massive canvases at Perrotin New York. Catch my article, 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗵 𝗔𝗯𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗣𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗲𝘂 𝗜𝘀 𝗥𝗶𝗽𝗲 𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, on the double solo show at Perrotin and Nahmad Contemporary in Galerie Magazine https://www.galeriemagazine.com/georges-mathieu/ “Now, with two striking New York solo shows at Perrotin and Nahmad Contemporary and a comprehensive monograph, Mathieu’s important place in post-war painting is rightly being reexamined.” ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ @plasternyc @galerieperrotin @nahmadcontemporary @galeriemagazine #art #contemporaryart #abstractart #actionpainting #performanceart #georgesmathieu #perrotin #nahmadcontemporary #nyc


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    Georges Mathieu—the 's' is silent, the work: loud. ⠀ "Georges Mathieu was one of the foremost French artists active during the 1950s and 60s. The centenary of his birth offers an ideal occasion to look back at the career of an artist and theorist who dedicated his life to an emotive, gestural, and highly nonrepresentational form of abstraction that had no correlative in the empirical world. The founder of Lyrical Abstraction, a movement that rejected the legacy of European geometric abstraction launched by Picasso’s Cubism and Mondrian’s De Stijl, Mathieu deeply influenced generations of artists working in the realm of performance and action-based painting." — Nancy Spector ⠀ Journey through Mathieu’s abstracted world now through October 23rd at Perrotin NY. — #GeorgesMathieu #LyricalAbstraction #NahmadContemporary #PerrotinNewYork #Perrotin #ActionPainting #AbstractExpressionism — Georges Mathieu, La Victoire de Denain [The Victory of Denain], 1963. Oil on canvas. 275 × 700 cm | 108 1/4 × 275 9/16 inch. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. © Comité Georges Mathieu / ADAGP


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    Lyrical Abstraction Defined ⠀ On the occasion of the centennial of French artist Georges Mathieu and to accompany the opening exhibitions, both at Perrotin NY and Nahmad Contemporary, this important monograph has been published in English and French. ⠀ Inside, discover exclusive archival materials, throwback images and an essay by chief art historian Germano Celant, a transcribed interview by leading museum curator, Nancy Spector, and an article from Comité director, Edouard Lombard. ⠀ Head to @PerrotinStore tonight from 4-8PM EST for #LESGalleryNight and snag a copy in-person if you're in the New York area! — #GeorgesMathieu #artbook #NahmadContemporary #PerrotinStore #Perrotin #ActionPainting #AbstractExpressionism #LyricalAbstraction — Courtesy of Comité Georges Mathieu and Perrotin.


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    👨🏻‍🎨🙏🏻 Merci Nancy Spector for this well-informed and well-deserved deep look at Mathieu in the context of American art history! ⠀ 𝘙𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 @nespector⠀ An exhibition of the French artist Georges Mathieu opened yesterday at Perrotin (and Nahmad Contemporary). This show marks a long overdue reevaluation of this important artist’s career. Once revered in the United States during the 1950s for his advocacy for lyrical abstraction and his support of the abstract expressionists, Mathieu was effectively written out of American art history because of the flamboyant and performative nature of his art. He made many of his paintings in front of live audiences with a flair for the theatrical and an embrace of pure velocity, completing massive canvases in under an hour. That combined with his themes celebrating French monarchy made him unpopular with left. A font of contradictions, yet an undeniable, catalytic force in French art, Mathieu deserves a deep look, which is what this project provides. @galerieperrotin @nahmadcontemporary



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  • All artworks of Georges Mathieu © Comité Georges Mathieu / ADAGP