Bernard Frize: Togetherless

Dirimart is pleased to host Bernard Frize’s first solo exhibition in Istanbul comprised of new works for this show. Since the late 1970s, Frize has been investigating on the materiality of the medium to further develop his method. Free of personal expression, any trace of subjectivity, he keeps generating predetermined geometrical motifs or patterns. “Feelings and emotions do not belong here,” says the artist. What matters for him is the act of painting; he establishes simple rules that he applies to certain colors within a frame of painting actions. “Nothing is described. No composition. The structure is like the surface. No referent apart, perhaps, from being classifiable as painting, and no auto-reference.” A discontinuous grid, almost a texture.

Bernard Frize occupies a unique position in abstract painting, due to austerity of his artistic ideas paired with a freedom of implementation. He loves paradoxes. “In order to chance to work, you have to create conditions that make chance possible, one of which is having a lot of time. It is a rather complex thing to arrange situations in which you do nothing and things happen by themselves,” he says. Color is another paradox for it does “not particularly interest” him, despite its being a vital raw material for his work. By using color in a nonhierarchical, experimental, technical-mechanical manner, Frize lends his works a certain dynamic through contradictions. Concentrating on the process of production of the painting rather than the elements like color, composition, and symbols offers a nice challenge to the viewer: the challenge of seeing/hearing the “pictorial score.”

Bernard Frize (b. 1954, Saint Mandé, France) has exhibited extensively internationally, including solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Zurich (1993); Kunstverein St. Gallen Kunstmuseum (2000); Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent (2002); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2003); Akademie der Künste, Berlin (2015); and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon (2015). His group exhibitions include The National Museum of Art, Osaka (2009); Tate St Ives (2012); Fondation Fernet Brancat, Saint Louis (2015); Yokohama Museum of Art (2016); and Weserburg Museum for Modern Art, Bremen (2016). His works are included in the collections of many institutions including Tate, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gent; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Kunstmuseum Basel; and Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt-am-Main. He was awarded with the Fred Thieler Prize in 2011, and with the Kathe Kollwitz Prize in 2015. The artist lives in Paris and Berlin.

For detailed information please contact the gallery at info [​at​] dirimart.com or T +90 212 232 6666.