Support-Surface Movement Examined in New Artpress Publication

Artpress has released 'Les grands entretiens: Support-Surface', a volume of interviews exploring the French avant-garde movement. The book features conversations with key figures Louis Cane, Marc Devade, André-Pierre Arnal, Jean-Pierre Pincemin, Claude Viallat, Vincent Bioulès, Daniel Dezeuze, and Bernard Pagès, conducted by Chantal Béret, Xavier Girard, Catherine Millet, Christian Prigent, and Delphine Renard, with a preface by Pierre Wat. Support-Surface, often called France's 'last avant-garde', was known for radical painting practices, theoretical work, and polemical stances. Active in the early 1970s, the movement staged exhibitions in museums and natural settings, never forming a fixed group but fostering affiliations. The interviews trace members' evolution from minimalist abstraction to figuration or baroque aesthetics, reflecting broader transformations in late 20th-century art. The publication highlights growing institutional interest in Support-Surface's contribution to art history on both sides of the Atlantic. A quote from Dezeuze underscores the movement's coherent revolt without abandoning painting's symbolic dimension.