At the musée du Niel, a manifesto for color

Located on the presqu'île de Giens in Hyères, the venue presents its new temporary exhibition “L'Abstraction est une couleur”, until November 1st.

This event offers a rereading of the art of the second half of the 20th century through the prism of the complex and passionate relationships between abstract creation and the use of color.

STRUGGLE AND FIGHT The exhibition title, sounding like a manifesto, highlights the purpose of the curator Antoine Villeneuve: to question the place of color in a post-war context where dominant chromatic codes were often dark. the relationships that may have existed in the second half of the 20th century between color and abstraction. These relationships are marked by a struggle, a fight,” he explains.

The exhibition highlights artists who imposed a colorful vision, whether through geometric expression like Jean Dewasne, lyric power with Georges Mathieu, Serge Poliakoff and Hans Nicolas de Staël, Victor Vasarely and Fabienne Verdier. “The purpose of this exhibition is to highlight Hartung, or by making color the central element of the work like Simon Hantaï. The American scene is also represented, with painters like Shirley Jaffe and Sam Francis, who claimed Matisse's legacy to make color the essential component of their work.

Twenty-six international artists will thus be brought together, including Karel Appel. For Jean-Noël Drouin, founder of the museum, this exhibition is a new way to reveal the riches of his private collection.

He looks back at the genesis of the project and his vision of art: “While abstraction is not a color as such of course, it allows the artist, freed from the constraints of representation, to use the chromatic palette as an autonomous language. In the abstract, color does not serve drawing, it becomes an entity in its own right, a color form, the very essence of the work,” he asserts.

REVEALER This conviction was born from a significant personal experience: “I became convinced of this during the exhibition Vivre la couleur : hommage à Jean Fournier. Far beyond the dazzling effect of the exhibited works [...], a very special inner jubilation transported me.

Color seemed to give rhythm, to vitalize the composition, it condensed the material to transform it into light; it acted as a revealer of abstraction.”

The founder hopes to share this emotion with the public: “Far from being a simple aesthetic choice, beyond the immediate, almost instinctive visual sensation, each work chosen for this exhibition carries within itself its own vibration and meaning. Everyone will, I hope, resonate with the personal experience of the viewer, like a mirror of emotions. [...

] It is this communion between the work and the viewer that I wish to share with our visitors this year.”

The permanent collection, the fruit of Jean-Noël Drouin's passion, brings together more than 200 works by 115 major international artists from the second half of the 20th century, such as Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Soulages or Claude Viallat.