25 02 ‘ 2021   museomag 
Let’s start by playing devil’s advocate: Some 
people who visit the exhibition at the MNHA 
won’t understand anything about your art and 
will start screaming that what you create doesn’t 
differ from the first paintings of a child. Would 
you like to say anything to them? 
„Yes, I would like to say that if what I do is not art for them, 
nobody should try to convince them that it is. What is art 
anyway? No one has an answer to that question. In pre- 
vious times, people started to create images of what they 
saw, using the little means they had. At some point, these 
reproductions of reality were called ‘art’. When I started 
to paint, the art scene was dead. People were still seeing 
art as images, visualised by artists. In a way, the artworld 
was desperately searching for the last painting. To me, 
art consists of everything people make. If a child creates 
something, you should tell them that what it makes is 
genius. As is the painting of someone who reproduces 
reality in a perfect way. One is not better than the other. 
It’s the process of creating that matters most.“ 
„MY TEMPLATES: JUST FORMS, 
NOTHING MORE“ 
The Supports/Surfaces movement became known 
because of its rebellious character and its criticism of 
the established order: the artists wouldn’t sign their 
works, didn’t exhibit in the conventional places, like 
museums or galleries, and didn’t even use stretched 
canvas. Isn’t it disappointing for you as an artist that 
your work is now shown in museums, and officially 
became art? 
„Not at all! I am always very pleased if my work is shown 
in exhibitions. It’s satisfying to see the paintings being 
exhibited in spaces that do them justice. Seeing them 
in another context reveals new and unexpected dialo- 
gues between the works and the space. To me that is 
marvellous. In the MNHA for example, two of my works 
are shown on two different walls, separated by a corner 
and a door. In that setting, it is as if the two works are 
continuing into each other behind that door, creating 
one sole work. As if they have always belonged together. 
The theory behind the Supports/Surfaces movement 
was created by others, not by me. There is no meaning 
nor a goal in what I’m doing, or trying to achieve. And 
there has never been one.“ 
What about the template you keep using all the 
time? Doesn’t that have any meaning either? I’ve 
read that it symbolises the back of a woman. 
INTERVIEW 
„People have a lot of imagination. No, it doesn’t refer to 
a woman’s back. I simply work with what I have at my 
dispositition. My templates, I have two or three of them, 
are just forms, nothing more. They could be replaced 
by any other form, and they always appear different in 
my work depending on the paint and the fabric I use. 
These templates don’t have a meaning, but they do have 
qualities though; they are not geometrical, nor figurative, 
representative or symbolic, they are just a mimesis.“ 
„THE PAINTING IS MY ROAD TO FREEDOM“ 
If your work has no meaning, nor a goal, what is it 
that you are doing or looking for, while creating? 
„I paint. And once I’m done, I watch and analyse what 
happened. Most artists have an idea and impose it to the 
canvas. I observe what the painting and the fabric reveal 
to me. The fabrics I use aren’t neutral. Sometimes I use 
© 
s. 
boulloud, 2019