One of the first things I was invited to do last year when I started teaching at ESADHaR in Rouen was to replace someone for the opening lecture of the conference Strategies abstraites de la peinture contemporaine. The proceedings of this conference, which was organised in collaboration with the institute Acte (EA 7539 Art, création, théorie, esthétique), École des arts, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, are now published.

Sara Bomans, Mini’s !, 2019 (mur du “musée” :31x23cm ; hauteur petite sculpture au premier plan : 6,7cm).

Stijn Cole, Mont Ventoux 14/04/2019 à 12h10 (oil on inkjetprint, A3).

I decided to talk and write about the observation that artists such as Kurt Schwitters, Sara Bomans and Stijn Cole (an admittedly somewhat unlikely combination) don’t make any differentiation in the use of abstract or figurative painting in their work. They find themselves literally entre chien et loup, in-between. You can find my text here.

The full proceedings with many excellent contributions by amongst others Benoit Géhane can be found here (in French).