New York

François Morellet, Répartition aléatoire de 40.000 carrés suivant les chiffres pairs et impairs et d’un annuaire de téléphone (50% bleu nuit, 50% noir) (Random Distribution of 40,000 Squares Using the Odd and Even Numbers of a Telephone Directory [50% Night Blue, 50% Black]), 1961, silk screen on wood, 31 1/2 × 31 1/2". © Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.

François Morellet, Répartition aléatoire de 40.000 carrés suivant les chiffres pairs et impairs et d’un annuaire de téléphone (50% bleu nuit, 50% noir) (Random Distribution of 40,000 Squares Using the Odd and Even Numbers of a Telephone Directory [50% Night Blue, 50% Black]), 1961, silk screen on wood, 31 1/2 × 31 1/2". © Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.

FRANÇOIS MORELLET

Dia Art Foundation
535 West 22nd Street, 4th Floor
October 28, 2017–June 2, 2018

Curated by Béatrice Gross with Megan Holly Witko

Consigned in the 1960s to that most damning of dustbins—the seemingly exhausted history of “European painting”—the expansive, endlessly experimental oeuvre of François Morellet (who died last year at the age of ninety) has received relatively little attention in the US. This focused presentation, the French artist’s first full-career survey on American shores, could prove a game changer. Bringing together nearly fifty works spanning seven decades, the show places a particular emphasis on Morellet’s abstract geometric paintings of the ’50s and early ’60s, when he developed his earliest rule-based systems and helped to found the legendary Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV). Installed at Dia’s spaces in both Chelsea and Beacon, the show also selectively tracks the artist’s later series and installations incorporating neon tubes, adhesive tape, and other nontraditional materials. A full-color volume of scholarship accompanies the exhibition.

— Molly Warnock