An interview between Benoît Maire and curator Christophe Boutin :

Christophe Boutin:
The exhibition “Benoît Maire: PIERROTS” is divided into two distinct phases. Firstly, on the day of the opening, a performance takes place in the gallery, with the works hidden from visitors behind curtains of silver fabric and presented upon request by the performers wearing clothes that you will have “prepared”. Then, from the day after the opening, the curtains are opened upon request by the gallery team. Once a painting is sold, it will no longer be visible, and the curtains will not be opened. Can you explain the reasoning behind this installation and how it influences the overall experience of the exhibition?

Benoît Maire:
I’ll throw the question back to you since it’s your idea... I quite like clothes, I’ve already made some, and launching this series of new paintings with a performance is quite fitting. I like your idea because it’s a change from my recent openings where not much happened. However, I find it curious to command that the curtain remains closed when a painting is sold. Can you explain this point to me?

CB:
The curtains conceal the sold artwork because, unless it enters a public collection, a sold artwork is generally no longer accessible to the public. This practice aims to honor the confidentiality of the buyer, who has the right to decide its “use”. The buyer can, however, opt for the curtains to remain open during the exhibition. An artwork acquired by a private collector becomes inherently inaccessible; the closed curtains emphasize this reality in a somewhat theatrical manner. In summary, hiding the artwork from public view reflects a unique dynamic between art, its private ownership, and its selective presentation. By the way, do you consider the performance with the curtains as an independent artwork that could be presented in an entirely different context than that of this exhibition?

BM:
Yes, of course. It’s a piece composed of the curtains, the clothing, and the protocol; one could call it “observe/forget”. In my opinion, the protocol will become more clear when we work with the performers. We end up with a work that conceals others. In the PIERROTS exhibition, the curtains hide the paintings but also a sculpture. Lately, I thought that the covering/uncovering protocol could be linked to a natural cyclical phenomenon, I was thinking of the phases of the moon. But quite quickly, I got tired of this idea. Your initial strategy was that the purchased painting would no longer be shown, then you said the collector could choose. Elsewhere, you indicated that visitors could ask gallery staff to uncover the pieces. So maybe nothing should be decided in advance, only to install this piece, which I would like to call “Sophie”, and see what happens during the exhibition. Allowing quite a bit of freedom will allow us to see which protocol emerges most simply.

CB:
You’re right, we can’t predict what “Sophie” will reveal to us! Tell me, after the esteem of your peers and the commercial success brought by your numerous “cloud paintings,” you wisely decided to change course and innovate. You sought to invigorate your painting, to “des-empater” (lighten up) it, and to rediscover the pleasure of painting, which led you to this new venture with the PIERROTS series. I thought that, since this is a significant turning point for you, why not draw inspiration from pivotal moments like DADA (1915) or the PUNK movement (1977) initiated by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren through to the SITUATIONISTS, obviously... and imbue your newly shaped experiences on the clothing of the opening performers? DADA and PUNK have spawned a profusion of creations. One could say that a “common style” at these two moments has emerged: layers of images and texts, playing with typographic characters, deconstructing classical composition, using innovative supports, etc. These shaped and graphic elements also resonate in your new works. What do you think?

BM:
Yes, I completely agree, DADA, the SITUATIONISTS, and PUNK share the same collage aesthetic. A young man of 20 with a blue mohawk, an anarchy logo painted white on a leather jacket, and a safety pin in the ear is just as quirky as a collage by Raoul Hausmann. As for Vivienne Westwood, you can’t get more inspiring than that!

CB:
Can you talk about your desire to combine the image of a pierrot, neon colors, and bulging or oil-painted forms on your white canvases? What led you to choose these specific elements for this new adventure?

BM:
I see these paintings as layers in Photoshop.When I started this series, I first put down the grid, a first layer, then a pierrot, asecond layer, then I made impastos, then came the spray strokes. Each of these layers correspond to a moment in the painting: themodernist grid, the romantic figure (the melancholic pierrot, abstract expressionism with colors straight from the tube or mashed with a palette knife, and street art spray that surfaces in the museum, referencing Martin Barré, figurative painting from the 80s as well as more recent zombie formalism.

CB:
Screen printing is a reproduction technique that is both simple and sophisticated. Can you explain how you integrated it into your creative process? Did you encounter any particular challenges with this method?

BM:
The figure of the pierrot is conceptual for me, meaning that its silhouette should be equivalent to a word. A reproduction process used in printing, such as screen printing, is therefore quite fitting to convey this idea. Screen printing allows for the identical repetition of the figure, which then functions as a concept. But while making the screen prints alone in the studio with a certainmastered nonchalance, pictorial events occur, and the “painted concepts,” if you’ll allow me the expression, are imbued with “impacts” related to printing accidents.

CB:
What types of paints and canvases do you prefer to use, and why? How do these choices influence the final appearance of your work?

BM:
For the cloud paintings, I used an Arles canvas that I primed with rabbit skin glue, and the raw fiber could be seen through it.Here I wanted something colder, so I take a Henry canvas already prepared with a white gesso, which gives me, for the signs that I will place on the canvas, the equivalent of a white cube for an exhibition. Also, I don’t frame these paintings; I paint directly on the free canvas on the floor, then I select the parts that interest me, I cut the canvas again, and I order frames in the right format to stretch the selected canvas piece.This process of cutting and mounting on the frame forms the equivalent of the frame of the painting. For the screen-printed parts, I use water-based ink, then oil from Winsor & Newton for the impastos and other details, Molotow acrylic spray paint because it’s not aggressive, and sometimes a Pébéo oil marker. Then rags, knives, squeegees, stencils. It’s a bit like the same cooking as the cloud paintings, but adapted to a more minimal, more economical project, as you also say because it’s less “painterly,” so without the glazes, for example. The painting is more indexed and less expressive, which gives a series with a more mental appearance.

CB:
The pierrot is traditionally associated with themes of melancholy and comedy. How do these themes reflect in your work, and what role does neon color play in this context?

BM:
I recently went through a bit of a down period, so there’s a self-portrait aspect to using this figure. The neon colors are perhaps the artificial fluctuations of dopamine ; ! The next step, by the way, is the entry of the doctor into the series. But the group of pierrots is just one element of the series that I’m starting; it’s a subset of the series if you will.There’s also a subset with a monkey, one with a conch, another with Hippocrates, the doctor therefore, and yet others with figures that link together to form a theoretical and visual poem.

CB:
I perceive this period of decreased activity as a transitional phase, which is actually a remarkable moment in an artist’s life. It’s the delicate moment when the next wave of creativity is being prepared. A new diversity of elements presents itself, requiring our next interpretation of their meaning(s)... Where do you draw inspiration for this menagerie composed of animals, characters, and objects?

BM:
In fact,the poem is quite cryptic and works with double-meaning words like“une conque,elle m’entend”(a conch,she lies to me) where each painted sign has its language equivalent. Each painting title composes a fragment of the poem. As for inspiration, for a year now, I’ve been sipping on Derrida’s last seminar on the beast and the sovereign and a bit of Novalis too.

CB:
Ah, do you remember Franz West’s iconic attitude when offered a philosophy book: “Thank you, but read it for me, I don’t have the time!” How do you manage to make space to delve back into your classics?

BM:
I read a lot of philosophy between 18 and 25, I read methodically, taking notes. Now I read less and less, and this seminar is like literature or poetry. If reading was my main course between 18 and 25, now it’s just a side dish, or even a spice for my painting activity.