(Cholet, France 1926–2016)
2 simples trames 0°, 10°, on the reverse signed, dated, numbered, inscribed Morellet 1974, 2 exemplaires ex no. 2, no. 74012, acrylic on wood, 80 x 80 x 3.5 cm

We are grateful to Danielle Morellet for her kind assistance in cataloguing this work.

Provenance:
Mc Kee Gallery, New York (gallery label)
Private Collection, North Rhine-Westphalia

Literature/Exhibited:
Renate Goldmann (Ed.) Leopold-Hoesch-Museum & Papiermuseum Düren, Unsere Werte – Die Hubertus Schoeller Stiftung/ our Values, The Hubertus Schoeller Foundation, Cologne 2014, p.109 (ill.), p. 190

As far back as the early 1950s, François Morellet began to work with pieces regulated by something beyond free artistic choice, with his art most easily integrated into the currents of Minimal or Systemic Art. “You can speak of Minimal Art, and especially of Systemic Art, if the design principle underlying the work is an overarching, transparent mechanical system that in no way stems from an individual, intuitive invention. Systemic Art is the counterpart to a kind of art in which the creative principle of the work is unique and unparalleled in terms of organisation, i.e. in terms of a composition that makes ideas of wholeness a reality, just like the work itself.” (Max Imdahl et al, Erläuterungen zur Modernen Kunst, Düsseldorf 1992, Max Imdahl, p. 175) The works are open systems that can be categorised under the term Systemic Art, with identical elements being combined to form large structures. François Morellet sees the fascinating linear grids of the floors of the Alhambra, among other things, as models for his works. Optical effects, such as displacements and intersections, mean that they can give the impression of movement and instability, although they are, in fact, static. The intention is to start with a simple system to create a complex tangle of lines and structures that merge into a dense image with multiple configurations, conjuring up mock movement that appears before the viewer. “Works of Optical Art awaken the faculty of sight that makes us aware of seeing, and also provoke experiences that are only accessible to sight by virtue of an unbridgeable difference between what is and what seems to be: what seems to be has no equivalent in what is or can be.” ibid., p. 177

“I love the flow of a seemingly inexorable system, on the condition that another system or some disturbance is interfering with it, enlivening it.”

François Morellet