‘CHEZ MATISSE’:MULTIPLE HORIZONS1961–1970
The exhibition Henri Matisse. Les grandes gouaches découpées opened at the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris in 1961. It featured forty-two gouaches, wall hangings and projects for the Vence chapel, Matisse’s final architectural commission, which occupied him until his death in 1954. Daniel Buren and Michel Parmentier discovered the paper cut-out collage technique there as young artists, inspired by Matisse’s approach to the density of the interstice and the active white of the support. But their own conceptual stances would soon reject all expressiveness, favouring an anti-subjective protocol: 38 cm bands for Parmentier, 8.7 cm stripes for Buren.
Other responses leaned towards homage or citation, such as Jean-Michel Meurice’s vinyl fabric collage flag, or Alain Jacquet’s painting Camouflage H. Matisse Luxe, Calme et Volupté [Camouflage H. Matisse Pleasure, Peace and Opulence], which references Matisse’s famous canvas through semantic layering, with Pop Art–tinged colours.
