Jean-Michel Sanejouand

« Picasso used to say: what prevents any artist from doing whatever he wants? Duchamp ironized: one cannot ask a painter to have a new idea every ten years. Picabia affirmed that it was necessary to know how to change ideas like a shirt to have clean ideas. Coming a long time after these joyful companions, I was at ease. Thanks to them, I would be able to behave normally. Wrong! Today, more than ever, an artist in a free state is perceived as a threat.

-Jean-Michel Sanejouand

Born in 1934 in Lyon, appeared on the French art scene in the 1960s with his pioneering series of « Charge-objets », died in 2021, Jean-Michel Sanejouand lived in Vaulandry, near La Flèche (Sarthe), after having lived in Paris from 1959 to 1995.

Since 1962, the self-taught artist, trained in law and political science, has developed successive bodies of work in which his sense of experimentation and formal freedom are continually expressed. Between 1962 and 1967, he created the series of « Charge-objets », notably exhibited at the 1965 Paris Biennale. Between 1967 and 1974, he conceived the « Organisations d’espace », notably in 1968 at the Galerie Yvon Lambert and for the exhibition Le Décor quotidien de la vie en 1968: expansions et environnements at the Palais Galliera (organized by Pierre Restany), then in 1969 at the Kunsthalle de Berne then directed by Harald Szeemann. From 1968 to 1978, he realized the « Calligraphies d’humeur », a set of figurative and comic sketches, often erotic, in contrast to the aesthetics of the time. Continuing the « Organizations of space », a set of works taking into account the public space and the urban planning are worth him to be present in the exhibition-summary of the conceptual art Information in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1970, then exposed to the Guggenheim Museum in 1972. In 1978, he began the « Espaces-Peintures » that the Galerie de France exhibited in 1982, a body of work closed in 1986. Then came the « Peintures en noirs et blanc » (1986-1992), followed by various sets of paintings and sculptures, including the series of paintings « Espaces-Critiques » (2002-2008), which proposes a reformulation of the work by depicting in imaginary landscapes the meeting of recent sculptures and earlier works, and finally the series « Espaces & Cie » (2009-2019). In 1995, the Centre Pompidou devoted a retrospective exhibition to him, an exercise that the FRAC Pays-de-la-Loire undertook in 2012.

Selection of solo exhibitions

2021
Spaces and Company, Telmah Gallery, Rouen

2018
Operation Contact, Galerie kreo, Paris

Beyond Color, Art : Concept, Paris

2015
Un peu d’espace(s), Art : Concept, Paris
Jean-Michel Sanejouand, Charges-Objets, Mamco, Geneva

2013
Les Organisations d’espaces (1967-1974), La Box, ENSA, Bourges

Retrospectively, Hab Galerie, Hangar à bananes, Nantes, and Frac des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou
Calligraphies d’humeur, Musée de l’abbaye Sainte-Croix, Les Sables d’Olonne

2005
Jean-Michel Sanejouand, Frac Île-de-France, Paris

2004
Question Peinture, Chez Valentin Gallery, Paris

1995
Retrospective 1963-1995, Centre Pompidou, Paris

1991
Espaces-Peintures 1978-1986, Museum of Modern Art, Villeneuve-d’Ascq

1986
Retrospective: from Charges-Objets to Espaces-Peintures, Octobre des arts, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lyon

1982
Espaces-Peintures 1978-1981, Galerie de France, Paris

1975
Tables of Orientations, Germain Gallery, Paris

1973
The Organizations of spaces of Sanejouand, National Center of Contemporary Art, Paris
Les Organisations d’espaces de Sanejouand, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

1971
Two Organizations of spaces, Sonsbeek 71, Dordrecht

1968
Two Organizations of Spaces, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris

1967
First Organization of Space, École Polytechnique, Paris

Selection of group exhibitions

2019
Gigantism, FRAC Hauts-de-France, Dunkerque

2017
Being stone, Zadkine Museum, Paris

2016
Art in Europe 1945-1968-Facing the Future, ZKM, Karlsruhe

2015
A New Festival 2015: Air de jeu, Centre Pompidou, Paris

1986
What is French Art, Crac Midi-Pyrénées, Labège Innopole, Toulouse

1976
Venice Biennale, French Pavilion, Venice

1972
Amsterdam, Paris, Düsseldorf, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

72/72, 12 years of contemporary art in France, Grand Palais, Paris

1970
Information, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Art Concept from Europe, Bonino Gallery, New York

1969
Arts according to plans, Kunsthalle, Bern

1967
Art Objectif, Galerie Stadler, Paris

1965
Biennale de Paris, Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris

1964
Chicken 20 NF, Yvette Morin Gallery, Paris

La Leçon des choses, Galerie du Ranelagh, Paris