This artist’s works extend the concept of the painting to that of volume in space. With the aid of canvas and a wooden stretcher Guiet creates abstract forms whose vivid colours are « borrowed from everyday objects most of us know, but without necessarily recognising them. »[1] These volumes adhere to walls, floors and ceilings in the form of abstract geometrical shapes not lending themselves to identification, and yet their bright, bold hues immediately trigger an urge to interpret. For this exhibition the artist has opted for a group of works varying from the small to the frankly very large: experiments with interplay of scale and the occupation of space.

As a way of accentuating this visual uncertainty and its potential for interpretation, the works have been given utterly enigmatic titles. Guiet did this by having someone strike a computer keyboard without looking, thus deliberately distancing us from what we thought we saw at first glance.

Specially for the exhibition, he has created a large work the length of the gallery, running along the floor and wall and leading the visitor to the area under the skylight. Here we see him honing the sense of the monumental and the concern with space already applied to such public venues as the Domaine de Kerguéhennec in 2012, and the Tour St Aubin in Angers in 2014. Beneath the skylight a second work of monumental proportions invokes contrasts of colour and form, together with concepts that contradict each other.

The exhibition also offers a series of smaller works which « record a renewed interest in plane surfaces. This does not mean, however, that his painting is capitulating to two-dimensionality, whence the interest of the paradox: he engages with the issue of flatness in works that remain intrinsically volumetric. »[2]

And so we find him testing out new volumes that more closely resemble paintings. Some of the works, like eudekf, zzzgtuyu and aeei, include a background and a foreground, an effect accentuated by a change of colour on the front surface, with the white section merging into the wall.

The Guiet oeuvre is situated – and situates the viewer – in a mentally and visually surprising space: a subtle intermingling of soft and hard, dynamic and static, convex and concave, equilibrium and instability.

This fourth exhibition demonstrates the artist’s capacity not only to dialogue with space, but also to address more painterly issues in a flirtation with the notions of object and pictorial autonomy.

Galerie Jean Fournier is pleased to be presenting the exhibition Dépaysement systématique/Systematic Displacement, curated by Marion Daniel. The exhibition is part of the Nouvelles Vagues/New Waves programme at the Palais de Tokyo from 21 June to 9 September 2013, featuring exhibitions by 21 curators under 40. Adopting an innovative approach to exhibition formats, Systematic Displacement will use the work of six artists to illustrate the process of construction of an artwork rather than the ultimate goal envisaged by the artist

‘ »Systematic displacement »: the term coined by André Breton alludes to the process of assembling and displacing forms to create a different kind of space – « the coupling of two realities, irreconcilable in appearance, upon a plane which apparently does not suit them », as Max Ernst would put it in Beyond Painting[1]. Intended as a huge collage on the scale of an entire exhibition, this project investigates the creative processes of six artists. Via repetition or the use of algorithms, each of them creates dynamic systems giving rise to new spaces. A different grasp of reality is involved in these works which, brought together, trigger a displacement seen as a radical transformation of the venue. Each artist is invited to demonstrate the development of the work in question and so to reveal the unseen factors underlying it: notes, drawings and photographs that portray a landscape under construction.

‘Defining her approach, Jorinde Voigt (b. 1977, lives and works in Berlin), speaks of « seeking a structure or means of notation that functions as eloquently as possible. » Using algorithms, she creates scores in the processual sense: works depicting dynamic spatial models. By contrast Marion Robin (b. 1981, lives and works in Clermont-Ferrand) opts for the site-specific, with no preconceived agenda: the idea springs from contact with the venue. In their mental-physical spatial mix her projects home in on tiny details of reality and quirky perceptions emerge.

‘With her filmed models/spaces, Aurélie Sement (b. 1981, lives and works in Rouen) offers a singular vision of architecture that juggles with scale and shifts in points of view. In her videos she films the rhythms of specific actions, seeing her work as a space in the course of construction. Olivier Soulerin (b. 1973, lives and works close to Paris) has a highly personal approach to the everyday: serial volumes accumulating plane by plane are combined with photographs in a strategy of mingling finished works with their background elements.

‘Like an architect whose medium is paint, Nicolas Guiet (b. 1976, lives and works in Paris) makes play with the components of his vocabulary, gradually displacing forms and colours via drawing, and then resituating them. He tests out different positions for his works, creating pictures out of projections of forms into the surrounding space. Elsa Tomkowiak (b. 1981, lives and works in Nantes) effects fundamental spatial changes with the pure energy of painting musically arranged as coloured strata. In their gut connection with their surroundings, her structures generate enormous spatial scores imagined as improvisations.’

­Marion Daniel

Systematic Displacement is accompanied by a catalogue covering the exhibitions at the Palais de Tokyo and the participating galleries.