Alan Suicide Vega, American Supreme, 1971-2009

Néon, who's afraid of red, yellow and blue?
谁怕红、黄和蓝？｜霓虹灯作品展 ｜巴黎

2012年5月20日结束
la maison rouge （红房）
10 bd de la bastille
75012 Paris, France 巴黎
www.lamaisonrouge.org

此展览包括100多个霓虹灯相关作品从1940年代到现在。参展艺术家包括1950年代Lucio Fontana，1960年代François Morellet, Bruce Nauman, Stephen Antonakos, Joseph Kosuth, 和 Mario Merz，以及一些当代艺术家例如Jason Rhoades, Tracy Emin 和 Claude Lévêque.

La maison rouge presents the first major international exhibition of neon art from the 1940s to the present day. Some one hundred works has been presented in all, many of historical significance, many being shown for the first time. The exhibition includes pieces by such pioneers as Lucio Fontana from the early 1950s, François Morellet, Bruce Nauman, Stephen Antonakos, Joseph Kosuth, and Mario Merz from the 1960s, and some of the many contemporary artists working in this medium, such as Jason Rhoades, Tracy Emin and Claude Lévêque.

French physicist and chemist Georges Claude developed the first neon tube in 1912, exactly one century ago. He unveiled his invention publicly at the Paris World Fair. A few years later, Claude filed a patent in the United States and, in 1923, sold his first two neon signs—reading 'Packard'—to a car dealership. The rest is history…

As early as the 1930s, Moholy-Nagy was predicting that it would not be long before the "field of expression" formed by night-time city lights found "its own artists."

Lucio Fontana showed the first ever work in Europe to be made entirely from neon, at the 1951 Milan Triennial: a vast, glowing, suspended whirlpool.

In the early '60s, in France, Greece and the USA, François Morellet, Stephen Antonakos, Bruce Nauman and Keith Sonnier began to use neon in their performances and visual works. Around the same time, Dan Flavin started working with a specific type of lamp: fluorescent tubes. All the work from this period was of an abstract nature, whether lyrical or geometric.
In the mid-sixties, neon learned to 'talk' and 'count,' first with Joseph Kosuth's neon tautologies then, a few years later, Maurizio Nannucci's early 'writings'—neon words or fragments of sentences in which colours, signs and meaning meld into one. At the same time, Mario Merz and Pier Paolo Calzolari incorporated neon words and numbers into their sculptural and/or sound installations. Martial Raysse, meanwhile, was including neon punctuation marks—'signs of desire'—in his assemblage-paintings.
In scarcely thirty years, this multitude of experiments and research took neon from a scientific invention, used primarily for advertising in urban areas, to an artistic medium in its own right.
Now neon brings together artists as diverse as Sylvie Fleury, Mathieu Mercier, and Cerith Wyn Evans.

Art made of color and light, yes, but neon art is also—first and foremost even—about line and curve.
Curated by: David Rosenberg

*The exhibition borrows his title to the work of Maurizio Nannucci, Who's afraid of red yellow and blue, 1970.



Alain Sechas, Maryline, 2003


Bertrand Lavier, Ifafa V Stella, 2008


Bethan Huws, Neon, 2007-2008


Brigitte Kowanz, Arise, 2008

Bruce Nauman, Big Welcome, 1985


Carlos Cruz Diez, Chromosaturation, 1965-2011


Claire Fontaine, 无题 (Lager), 2004


Claude Leveque, Revez 做梦, 2008


Daniel Firman, Tubless, 2006


Delphine Reist, Averse, 2007

Francois Morellet, Enchainement 8, 2011


Francois Morellet, Neon Dans l'Espace, 1969-96


Fritz Panzer, Neon, 2009


Glenn Ligon, Excerpt, 2009


Gyula Kosice, Madi Neon 3, 1946


何岸, 酒仙桥, 虹霞路, 2011


Jason Rhoades, 无题, 2004


Jeff Koons, Pot, The Pre New series, 1979

Jill Magid, I Can Burn Your Face, Vincent II, 2008


Joseph Kosuth, Self Described and Self Defined, 1965


Joseph Kosuth, Five Fives, to Donald Judd, Orange, 1965


Joseph Kosuth, Neon, 1965


Kendell Geers, KO lab, T ERROR, 2003


Keith Sonnier, Triple Loop, 1969


Laurent Grasso, Eclipse, 2007


Mario Merz, Caro Caretto 1978

有河岸?

(中间) Martial Raysse, About Neon, Obelisk II 1964


Martial Raysse, Snack, 1963


Maurizio Nannucci, Art 1994


Maurizio Nannucci, Who's afraid of red, yellow and blue? 1970


Miri Segal, Sous Les Paves, La Plage, 2011


Pier Paolo Calzolari, Materasso, 1970

Pierre Bismuth, Redeemed, 2011


Pierre Malphettes, La Fumee Blanche, 2010


Piotr Kowalski, Pour Qui, 1967


Sarkis, CRI, 2001


Sarkis, Veste Cheveux Traversee par la Lumiere 2004

Sigalit Landau, Go Home, 2009


Stephan Bruggemann, This Work Should Be Turned Off When I Die, 2010


Stephane Dafflon, PM 037, 2005


Sue Mei Tse, Tout Sauf Rouge, 2009


Sylvie Fleury, High Heels on the Moon, 2005


Thomas Mulcaire, A Luta Continua, 2003


Tracey Emin, Just Love Me, 1998


Xavier Mary, Hexagonal Lover, 2011

展览现场