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Claude Viallat

By (author) Claude Viallat, By (author) Luca Massimo Barbero

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In the beginning of the 1960s, in the stimulating and lively cultural climate of France, Claude Viallat (Nimes, 1936) was moved by the necessity to revisit the genealogy of abstract painting and the seduction of art informel (without neglecting Cezanne and Matisse), identifying a primitive form, with distinct and inimitable characteristics which were essential and almost hypnotic. Abstract art appeared in his formative years at the Art Academy in Paris, where he regularly visited Raymond Leguelt's studio and where he met, among others, Robert Rauschenberg, Jackson Pollock, Sam Francis, Morris Louis. It was in this period that he definitively abandoned verticalness; no longer using an easel, he painted on the floor, and outdoors in the sun, applying a mix of gelatins, pigments and water directly onto the untreated canvas. In the group Ecole de Nice, he had exhibitions from 1966 to 1969 with artists who belonged to such movements as Nouveau Realisme (Arman) and Fluxus (Ben Votier, Bernar Venet) and with the artists who would later work with him in the group Supports/Surfaces, directing his attention to places not designated to artistic attention like beaches and streets. In 1988, he represented France at the Venice Biennale.