Patrick des Gachons: The Blue Square Program

Since 1983, French artist Patrick des Gachons has adhered to a strict artistic program: painting only cobalt blue squares on white backgrounds, with the internal square increasing by 1% of its side length each year. The project is scheduled to conclude in 2032, when the blue will occupy 100% of the canvas. Des Gachons' works will be exhibited in October 2009 at Galerie Dock Sud in Sète, a new gallery opened by André Gélis. Each summer, he also hosts an artist at the Château de Fraissé-des-Corbières, where Pascal Broccolichi is showing from July 3 to September 7, 2009. The artist's practice involves applying around eighty layers of paint to achieve a deep, abyssal blue, a ritual performed daily in natural light. He has introduced 'accidents de parcours' since 1994, repainting older works with the current year's square, creating palimpsests. A series of sixty-four blue squares from 1944 to 2008 represents his life column. Des Gachons' work has been shown at Galerie Rivolta, Lausanne (1991), Espace de l'Art concret, Mouans-Sartoux (1995), Galerie Arnaud Lefebvre, Paris (2003), and CAPC Musée d'art contemporain, Bordeaux (2005).