Conversation piece
Patrick Javault is welcoming Claude Rutault and Jean-Claude Rousseau.
Since the day in 1973 when he decided to paint a canvass and a wall the same color, Claude Rutault has been drawing up his now famous « definitions/methods, » the realization of which he delegates to various « performers. » This way of working from the conditions of existence and diffusion of painting allows him to produce renewable and transferable installations, which as a consequence never cease to be current. This is also a means of finding arrangements with architecture or organizing encounters with the works of old masters (Poussin or Mondrian, among many others). Before the conversation at the Fondation d’entreprise Ricard, his new exhibition opens at the Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery on January 9.
Jean-Claude Rousseau made himself known with Les Antiquités de Rome (1989) and La Vallée close (1995), two monumental films he directed in super 8. For about ten years he has been using MiniDV, which has led him to reconsider the issue of duration and editing. Claiming Vermeer, Bresson, and Ozu as his influences, he proceeds through still shots – unpremeditated, these appear to him in their evidence. De son appartement (2007), released in December 2010 by the Reflet Médicis film theater in Paris, is pervaded by the reading of Bérénice and Racine’s preface, which states that « invention consists in making something out of nothing. »
Claude Rutault and Jean-Claude Rousseau have previously shown works together: l’Atelier [« The Studio »], presented at the Ecole d’art de Tourcoing in 2005, indirectly invoked Vermeer. One thinks that « painting is not a godsend » and the other shoots only when « the shot seizes/captures him »: they accepted to continue their conversation in public and have a third party intervening in their exchange.