Since the end of the seventies Bernard Frize has extensively created a considerable body of work which has been exhibited all over the world in galleries and museums (such as the Sao Paulo Biennale, Brazil, 2012, the Morsbroich Museum in Leverkusen, Germany, 2010, at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris/ARC, France, 2003, at S.M.A.K, Belgium, 2002 and at De Pont, Netherlands, 1998 among others). He has been awarded the Fred Thieler Prize for Painting in 2011 and the Berlinische Gallery has organized a major exhibition.
Known previously for investigating the process by which a painting was made, his work uses a variety of methods to make paintings, often sharing key features of modern industry and providing a reminder that meaning is not given but constructed. Founded on a sequential principle, his series of paintings are keys to exploring the conditions of their own appearance, through rigorous and playful compositions.
Like formal and conceptual musical scores, Bernard Frize’s paintings result from performances with very precise game rules that follow a predetermined structure that also allows for chance.
The exhibition “On the Side where there is no Handrail” at Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong, brings together eight never-before-seen abstract paintings of different series in vivid associations, reactivating some earlier motifs. The large works play with transparent & superimposed colors with a certain spontaneous gesture (“Gliale”, “Nelio”, “Brosilla”), some of them suggest kaleidoscopic visions or mysterious and hypnotic cross-section views (“Seplia”, “Ubald”, “Semploi”, “Ploria”, “Polji”, “Penta”). All the canvases resonate each other mutually despite their dissemblance. In a subtle manner, the dialogue between the works reveal the intrinsic and infinite possibilities of painting.
Sensuality and an obvious beauty paradoxically ensue from a style of elaboration that is cold and mechanical. Bernard Frize thus makes visible and palpable the economy of painting by posing the idea as a prerequisite for any pictorial action.
Photo: Claire Dorn ©ADAGP, Paris 2013 & Sack, Seoul, 2013. Courtesy Galerie Perrotin
