Alexandre Lenoir

Almine Rech is pleased to support the exhibition Alexandre Lenoir, Works on Paper, on view at 5 rue Rouget de Lisle, Paris, France, from October 15 to 20, 2024.

Some time ago, in the corner of Alexandre Lenoir's studio, landscapes of light lay resting in large tubs filled with water. These tubs were ongoing experiments; the creation of paper. He made numerous attempts, and only one of them had succeeded. The result was a pulp of paint residues collected from the tape applied to the canvas by his assistants, who followed precise protocols developed over the years. He then ground down the tape to a fine powder; the material for new sheets of paper. The remnants of his paintings had given rise to new drawings of faded reds, greens, and blues. This new sheet resembled a body of water. He wanted to draw them as soon as possible. Using the paper pulp, he created the image of the drawing as well as the structure of the drawing itself. Perhaps this was his first sculptural work, although flat, it was as if the piece had absorbed the relief of the tapes that often appeared in his canvas.

As he closed the door to his studio that day, he opened another—this one at 5 rue Rouget de l'Isle in Paris. An exhibition, in Autumn of 2024, was conceived as his first book was being released and as the world's art converged in Paris: a crossroads of encounters in space and time. In this place, deeply embedded in his mental landscape since birth and far from his childhood memories of Guadeloupe, a collection of works on paper is now on display. These pieces were created two years ago, shortly after his arrival in New York, marking the beginning of his research. America welcomed him for a new era, just as Morocco had done before, but he found it difficult to pick up his brushes again. He began to explore the intricacies of a printer. Crafting paper was still far from his mind. The first sheets he used got jammed in the machine, leaving streaks that became small, fortuitous events in his compositions, created blindly, much like other artists before him.This is also how he approaches his large paintings, without knowing what image will emerge once the work is finished.

Some of these works are simple movements of colors; the "Apparitions" are cascades of greens, purples, yellows, or turquoises that evoke a lush, warm, and distant nature. Elsewhere, images emerge: tall trees reflect in dark expanses of water evoking the landscapes of Île-de-France. One drawing depicts a gazebo by a river, its columns having an almost psychedelic look. Another, a pink sky illuminates crumpled waves silhouettes rising like spirits on these lands. The connection of these works to his paintings is evident: the desire to paint with a mechanical entity that he creates. Without his hands ever touching the canvas, he operates this phantasmatic robot, a working machine that will likely never exist in the perfection he envisions in his conjectures – conjecture, an opinion based on probabilities, appearances.

— Anaël Pigeat

Opening reception: Tuesday, October 15, 2024
From 5 pm

RSVP: David Hervé Boutin
dhboutin@bbplus-groupe.com - +33 (0)6 14 55 15 82