For this year’s edition of Independent 20th Century Luxembourg + Co. will present a display of works by Simon Hantaï (1922-2008) with a response by contemporary artist Rebecca Ward (b.1984), whose practice draws on Hantaï’s legacy and his unconventional painting methods.
A pioneering practitioner, Simon Hantaï’s work from the 1960s onwards has become associated with the term pliage [folding], which refers to the act of crumpling a canvas, then painting it, and finally unfolding the surface to reveal a pattern of morphic or geometric shapes. The technique, besides serving as a new method for experimental compositions, came to draw attention to the textural complexity and flexibility of the canvas as a medium in its own right.
Hantaï’s approach to painting continues to serve as a thought provoking proposition still today, as contemporary artists explore how to expose the qualities of the canvas as part of their creative process. Rebecca Ward, for one, sets out to deconstruct the woven surfaces of her paintings by fraying them into individual threads that reveal the support structures of her paintings as well as rhythmic colourful compositions.
Fuelled by the mounting interest in Hantaï’s work in light of the artist’s large-scale retrospective exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris, in 2022, this display steps outside of Hantaï’s universe during his lifetime in order to acknowledge his legacy to contemporary art today.