5 01 ‘ 2021   museomag 
NEW HANGING 
of the frame on the canvas.» It is clear that members of 
the loosely-knit collective aimed at deconstructing the 
fundamental objecthood of painting, at a time when an 
attack on the autonomy of art was being mounted all 
over the world. French culture was undergoing many 
swift and profound changes in the 1960’s. Anti-colonial 
uprisings in Vietnam and Algeria created waves of 
anger among the population. Several members of 
Supports/Surfaces were soldiers involved in these 
conflicts and saw the effects of these wars firsthand. 
Students and workers in France began social protests 
and strikes in May of 1968 and the French government 
responded by entering the universities and facto- 
ries, forcibly trying to quell the uprising. Artists in the 
group were active participants in these protests as well. 
Several art works by Viallat and Saytour in the MNHA 
presentation reflect these tensions and make subtle 
gestures against consumerism and imperialism that 
seemed to be the norm at the time. It is notable that 
Supports/Surfaces is invested in exploring weaving, 
knot tying and dying: artisanal skills that were begin- 
ning to be lost. 
ART IN PUBLIC SPHERE 
These artists were attracted to ideas outside French 
culture: Abstract Expressionism, Native American art 
and craft, Chinese ink painting, minimalism, and leftist 
political theory of many stripes including Maoism. They 
started a journal called Peinture. Cahiers Théoriques (in 
English: theoretical painting notebooks) to discuss and 
debate their ideas publicly. They also made exhibitions 
outside art galleries and museums, taking their art into 
the public sphere holding impromptu exhibitions in 
cafes, on beaches and other public spaces. The artists 
sought to take active control of the production and 
display of their artworks, and by extension imbue the 
works social and even political content. Given the exci- 
ting search of the artists involved and the quality of the 
paintings produced by the movement, it comes as no 
surprise that their work found its way to museums and 
art galleries all over the world. 
The MHNA exhibition shows that Viallat and Saytour 
explored how their work was impacted by a rejection of 
traditional painting, without throwing everything over- 
board. They managed to hold onto parts of the form 
while simultaneously scrapping components of pain- 
ting. This philosophical rejection and partial preserva- 
tion of painting allowed them to find new vitality in the 
form’s endless flexibility, which will hopefully delight 
many visitors to the MNHA’s extraordinary collection of 
works by both artists in the coming months. 
Ruud Priem