Christian Bonnefoi
A unique figure in the contemporary French art scene since the 1970s, Christian Bonnefoi developed a practice based on a radical approach of disarticulation and rearticulation of the components of painting, particularly through the technique of collage.
With a particular interest in the materiality of painting and the geometry of forms, Bonnefoi’s work oscillates between abstraction and figuration, while creating numerous dialogues with the masters and avant-gardes of the 20th century (Matisse, Picasso, geometric abstraction, minimalism, surface support, etc.). Author of numerous articles and books, including “Écrits sur l’art 1974-1981” (1999); “Traité de peinture, 2 vol. (2023), published by La Part de l’Oeil, Bonnefoi is currently director of the “L’Éclectique” collection at Eliott, which publishes 4 to 5 volumes a year on art, psychoanalysis, philosophy and theology.
Plus
Over the past fifty years, Christian Bonnefoi has contributed fundamentally to the debate on painting and its constituent structure, treating it as an object in its own right. A student of Hubert Damisch and Jean-Louis Schefer, Bonnefoi worked closely with Yve-Alain Bois and Jean Clay on the Macula review in the mid-1970s. His work was then contextualized within revised discussions of American and French perspectives on painting, forming part of the seminal exhibition “As Painting” at the Wexner Center for the Arts in 2001, alongside artists such as Agnes Martin, Gerhard Richter and Robert Ryman. The exhibition demonstrated Bonnefoi’s continuing influence on subsequent generations.
Christian Bonnefoi’s work is held and has been shown in international museums and exhibitions, including the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou in Paris, which hosted his first retrospective in 2008; the Musée Matisse, Cateau-Cambrésis, Nice (FR) ; Fondation Jean-Paul Najar, Dubai (SA); Fondation Hermès, Le Forum, Tokyo (JAP); Fondation Hermès, La Verrière, Brussels (BE); MoMA PS1, New York (USA); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (FR); FNAC, Fond National d’Art Contemporain, Paris (FR); etc.
Works
“My work develops more in a constellation than in a linear form. It’s a work which is never achieved, but always open.”
Christian Bonnefoi
News & Press
Exhibitions at the Gallery
Christian Bonnefoi, Solo Show
March 22 - April 27, 2024
