Niele Toroni

Born in 1937 in Muralto (CH)
Lives and works in Paris (FR)

Empreintes de pinceau n°50 répétées à intervalles réguliers de 30 cm

1983
Oil-based paint on canvas
200 x 140 cm chacune
Actuellement en dépôt : Musée départemental d'art ancien et contemporain, Epinal
Year of Purchase: 1984

Niele Toroni has remained rigorously loyal to a principle formulated back in 1967, when he was part of the BMPT group (Buren, Mosset, Parmentier, Toroni). His working method literally defines what is put on view: the marks of a 2 inch wide brush, applied at regular intervals. The paint does not yield any kind of message, and is nothing other than what it is, in a material sense. The obvious simplicity of what the work presents may be disconcerting. But Toroni’s art stems from a basic challenge to paint as an artistic medium for trying to establish his autonomy and free him from all manner of representation. The relation to the surrounding space and the spectator’s eye is quintessential, since it permits the work to be in a state of on-going evolution. Toroni’s painstaking and repetitive work is a form of spatial appropriation. The artist fills whole rooms and covers architectural details, as well as strips of fabric, paper and sets of canvases, as in Empreintes de pinceau no.50 répétées à intervalles réguliers de 30 cm (1983). Toroni’s art is rigorous and yet never monotonous. The paint traces underscore the reality of a medium, a colour, and a form. The artist’s ‘paint/work’ reveals what is painted as much as what is not. In this sense, Toroni works on the boundaries of painting, based on a method.

^{Sophie Richard}