Guy de Cointet

Guy de Cointet (1934–83) conceives art as an interplay of colour, language and form. His fascination for language and meaning is expressed in his drawings, books and performances. Fragments of text, colourful objects and actors blend the everyday with the absurd. His artworks come to life in performances.

The artist moved from Paris to New York in 1965, where he came into contact with Pop Art. In Los Angeles, he went on to develop his own enigmatic visual language. De Cointet’s work is a source of inspiration to artists today working in the field between performance and visual art.

Guy de Cointet was fascinated by how language is used in different forms, from advertisements and conversations to literature, soaps and radio. In his drawings, texts and performances, he introduced new ways of engaging with words, form and meaning. De Cointet broke language down and transformed letters into visual, rhythmic signs with clean lines and primary colours. Viewers decipher his texts not to discover the meaning of his art, but simply to enter into a dialogue with it.

De Cointet’s performances grew from his desire to explain his texts using objects and speech acts. He drew inspiration for his absurd dialogues from popular culture, literary sources and everyday conversations. Enlightenment goes hand in hand here with confusion.

M is presenting the first solo exhibition of his visual work in Belgium. The show includes a wide range of works: from the first encrypted drawings and books, to the later monologues, set designs and theatrical productions inspired by the current events of his time, mass media, and popular culture.

Curator: Eva Wittocx

In collaboration with the Estate of Guy de Cointet / Air de Paris, Paris.

Performance
During the Playground performance festival in Leuven two performances will be presented:

–Comme il est blond! (ou: De toutes les couleurs), 1982, recreation 2014 at STUK art center on 21 and 22 November
–Esphador Ledet Ko Uluner!, a reading from a book by Guy de Cointet at M - Museum on 22 November

Full program online soon: www.playgroundfestival.be

The exhibition is related to Alfred Jarry Archipelago, a series of projects and exhibitions around the French writer Alfred Jarry (1873–1907) sketching a subjective view of his heritage. A project initiated by La Ferme du Buisson (Noisiel) and Le Quartier (Quimper), in collaboration with  Museo Marino Marini (Florence).

This fall in M:
Michael Van den Abeele, Opacity, please
​Until 25 October
Painting is central to the multifaceted artistic practice of Michael Van den Abeele (1974, Brussels). For this exhibition, he has combined abstraction with impulses from science fiction, palaeontology and exoticism. The dinosaurs or space scapes in his paintings do not evoke a tangible reality. Instead, they adhere to a logic of form, illusion and style. He devised a scenography of concrete plinths and walls especially for these works. In addition, he has created a new narrative sound sculpture.

Sarah Morris, Astros Hawk
19 October 2015–20 March 2016

Playground
19–22 November 2015

Jimmy Robert, A clean line that starts from the shoulder
20 November 2015–28 February 2016