Supports/Surfaces: Painting Above All


05/29/2021

In 1970, when the contemporary art scene was obsessed with the “death of painting”, a dozen of young artists declared their love for the venerable medium and formed the group Supports/Surfaces. Stripped from the non-essential, painting was to be rejuvenated, not sentenced to death.



by Iveta Slavkova

Claude Viallat (b. 1936), Untitled, 1976, Acrylic on tarpaulin. Image courtesy of MNHA, Luxembourg © Adagp, Paris, 2021
The Origins of the Group
Supports-Surfaces was a French art movement rooted in friendship clusters, which preceded the actual foundation of the group in 1970. Most of the artists had met in various art schools: André-Pierre Arnal (b. 1939), Vincent Bioulès (b. 1938), Pierre Buraglio (b. 1939), and Claude Viallat (b. 1936) knew each other from the School of Fine Arts in Montpellier. Then Buraglio and Viallat  met Daniel Dezeuze (b. 1942) at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.  Read more