Support/Surface Years

Just as Johannes Itten’s influential Bauhaus courses were once described as an “expressionist jam,” the work of the French artists affiliated with the ’70s support/surface movement could be called “conceptual jam.” This bizarre hodgepodge—part formalist reflection, part Maoist discourse—covers a wide aesthetic spectrum in the work of such affiliates as Louis Cane, Daniel Dezeuze, and Claude Viallat. It’s an irony of art history that, with this show of sixty-four works curated by Daniel Abadie, director of the Jeu de Paume, the support/surface sloganeering can even play into the hands of cultural

previews May 1998

Kinetic Art: Strategies of Participation

For the reluctant skeptic, kinetic art of the ’60s may recall nothing so much as a splitting headache. This eighty-piece exhibition is an attempt to reframe this body of work, largely dismissed as bells-and-whistles kitsch; when all is said and done, Magasin director Yves Aupetitallot (who has curated the show) hopes to make a convincing case otherwise. The first part of the show offers viewers a chance to rediscover the works of France’s Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel and Italy’s groups N and T. In the second part, a parallel is drawn with contemporary art (such as John Tremblay’s and Michael