Michel Parmentier

The significant part of Michel Parmentier’s whole artistic career could be summed up in just a couple of words: his oeuvre “starts” and finishes with the technique of pliage/dépliage but, more in general, it can be equated with a perpetual reflection through which doubt is methodically exercised. If painting is practised through language, acted out in the creative space of the canvas, and pondered in the verbal dimension of fragmentary writings and notes, the inseparability of ethic and praxis (in which the central interest concerns the writings of Louis-René des Forêts, Blanchot and Levinas) leads Parmentier to untiringly check the limits of painting. The result is a productive aporia: all of his work shrugs off interpretations or meanings, painting is painting and that is it.

Michel Parmentier was born in 1938 in Paris where his studies began at the École des Métiers d’Art; here he got to know Daniel Buren with whom in 1966, in a period when painting was the subject of heated theoretical debate in France, he would found the group “Buren – Mosset – Parmentier – Toroni” (B.M.P.T.), with which he is much more often identified.

Sporadically frequenting the studio of Roger Chastel at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, his first public début took place in 1962 with his participation in the Jeune Peinture exhibition in Paris, where he received an enthusiastic reception from the majority of the critics. From this time on, and after winning the Prix Lefranc in 1963, he began an intense period of exhibitions, being contacted by numerous Parisian galleries such as Galerie Lutèce where he took part in the Exposition inaugurale [50 Artistes / 50 Œuvres] exhibition in 1965.

During the 1960s, Paris was host to an immense number of competitions, painting prizes, expositions, group expositions, biennales, etc., and it was in this atmosphere that Parmentier took part in the third and fourth Biennale de Paris in 1963 and 1965; the Salon de la Jeune Peinture in 1962 and again in 1963 and 1966; the Salon Grands et Jeunes d’aujourd’hui in 1963, 1964 and 1966; and, of course, the 20th Salon de Mai in 1964.

His participation in the Salon de la Jeune Peinture from 9 January to 1 February 1966 highlighted the drastic change that had already been taking place in his work since November-December of the previous year, namely, when Parmentier started to reflect on components of painting such as the format, colour, width of the stripes, stapling, date stamp and signature. This process led him to turn his back on his early work with which he had nevertheless won the Prix Lefranc in 1963. Now, however, he abandoned it to follow a new way marked by a rejection of expression, choosing to produce works based on reiterating the action of folding – pliage – a method that he borrowed from Simon Hantaï, whom he had met thanks to Buren in 1963, and who had already initiated “Pliage comme méthode” in 1960.

In April 1966 he finally achieved a full, new formal solution with a canvas slightly higher than wide, previously prepared and covered in a uniform white, while regular folds divide up the canvas into numerous horizontal stripes, stapled along the line of the fold, and colour is sprayed (the mechanical application of the colour introducing the idea of the neutral artistic gesture) all over the folded surface. The work is carried out horizontally on the floor after which the canvas is hung up on the wall and the staples are removed. The end result, with the date stamp and title, the size written by hand and the signature on the back, now presents numerous horizontal stripes, alternatively painted in a single colour, all of the same width (38 cm) except the ones right at the top and bottom which vary from work to work.

The first pliage, Décembre 1965, the very first of its kind, was initially painted with light magenta and white horizontal stripes (as evidenced by the magenta that gushes onto the front and back); four months would pass before he repeated this operation. The new year started with 5 avril 1966 and ended with 12 décembre 1966, totalling ten canvases made during the year, all using the same procedure. He repeated this for three more years, the only change being an arbitrary change in shade in order not to succumb to the symbolism of colour: blue for 1966, grey for 1967 and red for 1968.

Underlining the importance of this method is the author’s constant concern that the canvas should show signs of the folding and unfolding; it is no coincidence that in 1968, alongside the work 1968 [rouge], Parmentier jotted down a model on a sheet of A4 specifying the conditions needed to preserve the folds. Nevertheless, it would only be in 1978, in partnership with Michel Durand-Dessert (owner of the gallery that represented him from 1978 to 1991), that he would perfect his exhibition method.

At the same time, in addition to the canvases made using the pliage technique, some works (four in total, 25 septembre 1965, 15 octobre 1965, 15 avril 1966 and 15 mai 1967) were made using a date stamp on different sizes of paper.

In 1967, his painting started to serve a shared critical cause: together with Daniel Buren he founded a group of painters who would be joined first by Niele Toroni and later by Olivier Mosset. The last three months of 1966 were hence spent preparing and publicizing a group exhibition whose series of actions would set out a critical stance within the Parisian exhibitions.

Then the group took part in the 18th Salon de la Jeune Peinture at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the programme for which was to make works in public: Parmentier took his square canvases, already prepared and covered in white, and before the public methodically started his by now defined practice of painting, the only difference being that this time he applied the colour using Krylon “dove grey” spray cans. During the opening he made numerous paintings, while above the space set aside for the works, from left to right, a banner was hung with the names of the four artists “Buren – Mosset – Parmentier – Toroni”. In the background a recording of a woman’s voice (Lucie Scheler) on a loop, asserted that “Buren, Mosset, Parmentier, Toroni advise you to become intelligent” in English, Spanish and French.

Just before the end of the opening, the canvases were removed and another banner hung up, alongside the previous one, with the words “n’exposent pas”  (Manifestation 1).

At 8.15 in the evening, journalists were sent a mimeographed leaflet signed by the four artists  (Manifestation 2) in which they set out their clear position against the Parisian salons, stating that: “For these reasons, we break definitively with all the Parisian Salons, as well as with all the Painters who exhibit there”.

From 29 May to 1 June, Buren, Mosset, Parmentier and Toroni were invited to take part in a temporary exhibition (Trois Journées de la rue de Sèvres), in which the shopkeepers in the street placed their windows at the artists’ disposal. The window of a shoe shop was plastered with posters for Manifestation 3. Contemporaneously, these same posters, with mugshots of the four artists, together with the invitation that they had signed, calling upon the public to go to Manifestation 3, were put up in the streets of Paris.

From March to May, Parmentier made four grey canvases (15 mars 1967, 20 mars 1967, 18 avril 1967 and 21 mai 1967) while in June it was the moment of Manifestation 3: on the stage of the auditorium in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, four paintings of the same size were displayed, one for each artist, forming a large square. The audience waited 45 minutes for a presumable show to start but, as the pamphlet given out at the end would reveal, the show was “simply a question of looking at the canvases of Buren – Mosset – Parmentier – Toroni”.

Lastly, Manifestation 4. For the 5th Biennale de Paris at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, from September to November 1967, Parmentier displayed a canvas mounted on a frame, which he had already presented on occasion of Manifestation 1. Once again, it was with the three by the other artists, which were set out in alphabetical order, again in the form of a square, and hung on the wall in a corridor near the bar, in a passing place outside the usual exhibition space. Opposite, a vertical structure completely plastered with posters for Manifestation 4 (once again with the four artists’ mugshots) hid a slide projector and a  tape recorder: during the exhibition, a series of slides were projected onto the ceiling, each on a specific topic, accompanied by a loudspeaker that transmitted a text explaining the illusion of art, after which each artist’s work was lit up and an off-screen voice stated: “Pas la peinture de Buren, Mosset, Parmentier, Toroni”.

In short, painting was rejected thrice over, by refusing the exhibitions, the condition of the artist and the condition of painting as such.

Nevertheless, on 6 December 1967 Parmentier stepped back from taking part in a show that brought together the works of Buren, Mosset and Toroni at Galerie J in Paris, each of the three presenting the others’ canvases alongside their own and signing all three works with their names. In a pamphlet Parmentier announced his total distance from the other three’s new position. As he had it, by introducing the concept that all of the artists could have painted the other ones’ canvases and claim responsibility for the other three, they had abandoned rigid repetition and introduced variation to their painting. Parmentier defined this position as “rétrograde”, a backslide from the positions that the four had defended together until that moment. And so, he declared: “Le Groupe Buren – Mosset – Parmentier – Toroni n’existe plus”.

The year 1967 ended with the realization of four more works: 20 septembre 1967, 8 novembre 1967, 15 novembre 1967 and 16 novembre 1967, while the new year started with 1968 [rouge] and carried on with ten more canvases from 15 janvier 1968 to 5 août 1968. Then he gave up painting for 15 years.

Parmentier stopped painting but he did not disappear from it. They were 15 years not of silence but of ceasing the practice of painting. During this time, despite taking painting out of the art scene, he pursued it as a raison d’être, enlightened by fragmentary writings and notes. In short, the silence did not mean he had stopped working.

Hence, in 1972, he accepted the invitation to the exhibition Douze ans d’art contemporain en France 1960-1972, displaying a specimen of each of his canvases (1966, 1967, 1968) and publishing an open letter to François Mathey, the exhibition’s curator, in the catalogue. In the letter he set out his reflections and reasons for abandoning the practice of painting: “If my work is itself theory, all theory (my leave-taking) must have recourse to words in order to be neither a dramatic stage exit, nor dubious disaffection, nor a badly motivated desertion by an artist who reinvents himself; this absence, this cessation is the intimate subsequence of my work, it is dictated directly by its objectively subversive quality”.

Again as to this “almost silence – but told”, in an interview by Michel Nuridsany in September 1988, he would state “Now I’m abandoning color and paint itself as material so that it is a little more transparent, a little more silent. […] Starting from here, I would simply like some others to want to bequeath this non-violent discourse, this type of useless questioning against an imperialist extravagance. […] Here in 1988, the people who do not systematically doubt make me throw up. […] One has to almost disappear in painting, forgetting the talent that one was able to possess”, concluding: “Efface oneself. I thought I had effaced myself but I realize that I must efface myself even more. And that’s never finished”.

Ten years after stopping painting, Parmentier exhibited for the first time in the Michel Parmentier (3 toiles de 1966, 1967, 1968) solo exhibition at Galerie Liliane & Michel Durand-Dessert in Paris, whose owners he had already met thanks to Toroni. Liliane and Michel would then represent Parmentier until 1991.

He only resumed painting in 1983, from the exact point where he seemed to have left off it, making canvases with horizontal black and white stripes non-stop for two years, until 1985. While the canvases in the previous phase were less prepared (and hence more absorbent) and there were differences in the brightness of the painted surfaces, now the surface was unified by a spray-painted finish.

In 1984 another solo exhibition (Parmentier 1983-1984) at the Galerie Liliane & Michel Durand-Dessert put on show the works made in the first two years since he had resumed painting.

The “reign” of black-and-white canvases from 1983 to 1985 was interrupted by the realization, from April 1986 to December 1989, of works on blank newspaper; fragile and porous, the surface is no longer smooth but absorbent and instead of the usual preparation of the canvas, Parmentier lines up vertical strips of paper, creating a surface on which he repeats, from left to right and from top to bottom, graphite lines that change from work to work, sometimes irregular, sometimes more or less intense. Parmentier traces, repeating an almost identical, non-communicative gesture, in a constant balancing act between nothingness and a sketch, between the said and the unsaid.

Furthermore, from this moment on Parmentier no longer signed his works, just numbering them and stamping them with the date of their execution.

He exhibited the new works 27 juin 1988, 12 août 1988 and 1er septembre 1988 from September to October 1988 at the Galerie Liliane & Michel Durand-Dessert and 17 juillet 1988, 18 août 1988 and 27 juin 1988 at the Centre national des arts plastiques in Paris.

In October 1989, the artist’s research took his focus on eliminating the traces of his painting, which he was already doing on newspaper, a step further through the choice to use tracing paper, a translucid, semi-transparent medium. By making the medium on which the work is hosted visible, its transparency plays a decisive role in the dialectic of showing and perceiving, since its level of transparency veils the wall behind but does not hide it completely.

The first works on tracing paper made with charcoal, always applied with the same circular movement, were 9 décembre 1989 and 14 décembre 1989.

In many works, the grain of the medium (of the wall or the panel) on which the work has been made appears on the surface of the sheet; it is contact painting, frottage, in which the pressure of the charcoal, graphite or pastel rubs down onto the medium.

In the first works in white pastel, 13 décembre 1989, 18 décembre 1989, 5 janvier 1990 and 20 février 1990, the colour is drawn by pressing down the flat part of the pastel. The whole surface is covered by one vertical stripe after another, next to each other, each of the same length from top to bottom and from left to right. The same principle is also applied in the oil-bar works (6 mars 1991, 5 mai 1991 II and 5 mai 1991 IV) and in the grey pastel works (19 avril 1991, 25 avril 1991 and 4 juin 1991 II).

Meanwhile, since April 1991, Parmentier had regularly been going to Brussels to prepare the Buren Parmentier exhibition which would be held from 7 June to 20 July at the Palais des Beaux Arts. During these trips, he made numerous works in the studio of Guy Massaux in 123 rue Marconi in the town of Forest, in the Brussels-Capital region. During the same period, he left Galerie Liliane & Michele Durand-Dessert. Parmentier clearly states the reasons for this split in the open letter Quand des questions que nous voulons sérieuses sont éludées entre poire et cigare dans les dîners en ville: as he put it, Durand-Dessert’s censure of the book Propos délibérés (in publishing which Parmentier and Buren had aroused much controversy) owing to their refusal to sell it in their new gallery, “prompts me to leave a gallery where I feel I no longer belong”.

Then after this split, Parmentier exhibited a series of four works on tracing paper at Isy Brachot’s Parisian gallery from 29 April to 30 May.

The period of work on tracing paper ended with 6 juin 1991. A new phase of artistic production began in March 1993 when, following a suggestion by Guy Massaux, the artist who had become his steadfast assistant, Parmentier used polyester tracing paper, a material less fragile and less prone to ripping than tracing paper.

In a first series of works (from 31 mars 1993 to 15 mars 1994) made in preparation for the Michel Parmentier exhibition at the Carré des Arts in Paris, from 17 March to 15 May 1994, he repeated the operation of applying oil-bar all over the surface in lined-up stripes measuring between 4 and 5 cm wide and 38 cm high.

In April 1994, the 26-minute documentary film, 304 x 308 (Presque le silence), co-written by Bernard Bloch and Agnès Foiret, was filmed at the studio of Guy Massaux. In the same place, on 19 April 1997, the Michel Parmentier, (304 x 308) (076 x 308) (304 x 308) 15 mars 1994 05 juillet 1995 26 mai 1996 exhibition was held, organized upon the initiative of collector Bruno van Lierde and Guy Massaux, with the collaboration of Jean-François Fontaine. The works by Parmentier, 15 mars 1994, 5 juillet 1995 and 26 mai 1996, were displayed for just seven hours, while a VHS of the film was transmitted on a loop.

Michel Parmentier’s entire creative career rounded off with the work 20 novembre 1999, made for the JARS IV tegenvleug /à rebrousse-poil (Positie in de schilderkunst – Positions dans la peinture) exhibition held at the Kunstcentrum Sittard from December 1999 to February 2000 upon the initiative of the art centre director Jos Cleevers. Luk Lambrecht and Guy Massaux were chosen as curators and they invited Parmentier to exhibit. On this occasion, Massaux placed Parmentier’s work in a dialogue with a canvas by Simon Hantaï. On 21 November 2000, after the artist’s death, the Michel Parmentier: présentation de l’œuvre 20 11 99 exhibition was opened at the Galerie Jean Fournier in Paris, with 20 novembre 1999 on display in the same place where, 35 years earlier, Décembre 1965 had been exhibited.

In 2001, the Centre Pompidou – Beaubourg would open a double exhibition: Simon Hantaï/Michel Parmentier, from 17 January to 19 March in Paris. Subsequently, Galerie Jean Fournier (2011) and Galerie Loevenbruk (2014) in Paris dedicated two important solo exhibitions to Parmentier; again in 2014, Michel Parmentier, Décembre 1965 – 20 Novembre 1999, une rétrospective, curated by Guy Massaux, was organized in the Centre d’Art Villa Tamaris in La Seyne-sur-Mer. A selection of canvases were then exhibited at Punta della Dogana in Venice on occasion of the Accrochage exhibition (2016) promoted by the Pinault Collection. In 2018, the artist’s first solo exhibition in the United States, at the Ortuzar Projects gallery in New York was followed by the first retrospective at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in East Lansing; in 2019, Frieze Masters with Gallery Loevenbruck

Regent’s Park, London and in September 2021 14 février 1990 was displayed in the Unlimited section of Art Basel 2021 in Switzerland, curated by Giovanni Carmine.

Il Ponte (Florence, 2022) and Eduardo Secci (Milan, 2023) galleries present Michel Parmentier. Opere e documenti, the first Italian retrospective, curated by Guy Massaux.