Five Artists, Five Exhibitions: Painting's Limits Explored Across Central France

In autumn 2002, the Centre region of France became a focal point for contemporary painting, with five artists presenting works that interrogate the medium's boundaries. Sylvie Turpin's reliefs at Carré Saint-Vincent in Orléans (November 8 – January 4) and La Borne in Nançay (November 12 – December 8) explore an 'in-between' state between painting and sculpture, using techniques from the Georges Leblanc workshop in Paris. Jean Delaunay and Laurent Mazuy, both members of the Orléans-based collective Le Pays où le Ciel est Toujours Bleu, exhibited together at Salle Dembac in Vierzon (November 7 – 24), confronting old and new works to reveal shared pop colors and a tension between gesture and order. Stéphane Bordarier and Christophe Cuzin showed at La Box in Bourges and the École supérieure des beaux-arts in Tours (November 14 – December 13), with Bordarier's monochromes testing internal limits of painting and Cuzin reconfiguring the exhibition space itself. The duo format, including a carte blanche to critic Pierre Wat for Bordarier-Cuzin, highlights a trend of artists opening their practice to another's. Tristan Trémeau's review notes that Turpin's works recall a little-known history of painting's limits, from Laszlo Péri's painted cement reliefs (1922-24) to Bernard Guerbadot's plasters (since 1994).