The Supports/Surfaces Movement

Born between 1965 and 1966, the Supports/Surfaces movement takes its name from four group exhibitions that brought it to prominence between 1970 and 1971. Although very short-lived—the movement dissolved as early as 1972—it is nonetheless regarded as the last major movement to have significantly shaped artistic creation in France. Its founding members include twelve artists: Claude Viallat, Vincent Bioulès, Louis Cane, Marc Devade, Daniel Dezeuze, Noël Dolla, Toni Grand, Bernard Pagès, Jean-Pierre Pincemin, Patrick Saytour, André Valensi and André-Pierre Arnal. along with a broader group of artists with parallel practices and shared affinities, such as Pierre Buraglio, Christian Jaccard, Jean-Michel Meurice and François Rouan.

What brought these artists together at the turn of the 1960s was a shared desire to reconsider the foundations of abstraction, at a time when painting was expanding in many different directions—from the monochromes of Yves Klein to the work of Lucio Fontana, from the appropriations of Nouveau Réalisme to the political dimension of Narrative Figuration. Faced with a School of Paris whose form of abstraction no longer met their expectations, they turned their attention toward other horizons: American Abstract Expressionism, notably analyzed in France by Marcelin Pleynet, as well as the considerable influence of Simon Hantaï, Sam Francis, and Jean Degottex on the younger generation.

The very name of the group refers to the two fundamental components of painting: the support—the canvas—and the surface—the applied paint. At the core of the Supports/Surfaces approach lies a systematic process of deconstructing and dismantling the traditional painting. Works are no longer stretched over a rigid frame but are sometimes simply hung or laid on the ground, emphasizing their physical nature and structure. Artists explore the possibilities of textiles—cutting, reversing front and back, folding, dyeing, imprinting, stapling, weaving—in order to restore unity between pictorial practice and its support. The exposure of the stretcher and the use of unstretched canvas allow painting to be conceived not as a mere projective screen, but as a surface that actively occupies space. By revealing the arbitrariness of pictorial conventions, this deconstruction also leads artists to rethink the role of color, through an organization of colored surfaces that constitutes one of the movement’s most original contributions to the history of French abstract painting.

The Supports/Surfaces movement also carries a strong theoretical dimension: its artists were deeply engaged in critical reflection on their work. The journal Peinture, Cahiers théoriques, founded in 1971, served as a platform for the dissemination of their ideas and manifestos. Art was no longer merely about producing objects, but became a site of thought—an arena for intellectual experimentation in which notions of perception, language, and materiality were questioned.

Aguttes has long supported the promotion and recognition of this foundational movement. Among its emblematic figures, Claude Viallat, Jean-Pierre Pincemin, and Daniel Dezeuze have been regularly featured in sales, reflecting the vitality of the market for these works. Pierre Buraglio, closely associated with the movement, has also been included.

Our upcoming sale will feature works by Claude Viallat — a magnificent acrylic tarpaulin—and Daniel Dezeuze, alongside three small plaster sculptures by Michel Duport, whose practice continues the lines of inquiry explored by the Supports/Surfaces movement.

Post-War & Contemporary Art
Wednesday, june 24 at 3:00 p.m.