{"id":966,"date":"2020-11-02T14:19:21","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T13:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fc.tias.ch\/?page_id=966"},"modified":"2026-02-05T15:13:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T14:13:10","slug":"press","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.frederic-clot.com\/?page_id=966","title":{"rendered":"PRESS and WRITINGS (selection)"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Press<\/h1>\r\n

Bilan : Artgen\u00e8ve s’est sagement mis sur orbite mercredi \u00e0 Palexpo. https:\/\/www.bilan.ch\/story\/ed-artgeneve25-764079158736<\/a>, par Etienne Dumont<\/p>\r\n

RTS: Digital, de l\u02b9\u0153il au doigt.\u00a0 rts.ch\/…\/les films-avec-des-personnes-en-situation-de-handicap-ovationnes-a-cannes-28513205<\/a><\/p>\r\n

par Florence Grivel<\/p>\r\n

24 HEURES : ce-que-la-machine-a-ecrire-navait-pas-encore-dit<\/a>, par Florence Millioud-Henriques<\/p>\r\n

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RTS : Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot expose son univers pixelis\u00e9 \u00e0 Neuch\u00e2tel<\/a>, par Florence Grivel<\/p>\r\n

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24 HEURES : figuratif-frederic-clot-foltre-espacetemps-pixel<\/a>, par Florence Millioud-Henriques<\/p>\r\n

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Arc Info : jungle-de-pixels<\/a>, par Camille Jean Pellaux<\/p>\r\n

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Mousse magazine :\u00a0Memoria del sublime il paesaggio nel secolo XXI\u201d at Museo Villa dei Cedri, Bellinzona<\/a>, par Share<\/p>\r\n

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… Today, artists not only perceive and conceive the artifice behind any representation of nature but also make it, literally, their subject. Vaud-born Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot\u2019s \u201cbiotopes\u201d are an eloquent illustration of this: his representations of fruit and plants, interwoven with computer data and governed by a digital aesthetic, are more evocative of a greenhouse in a strange botanical garden than of nature preserved in the wild. It is from this interaction between the scientific and artifice that the contemporary sublime emerges. The photographs shot in the light of the full moon by British photographer Darren Almond, like German artist Mariele Neudecker\u2019s sculptures with their chemical fog, re-establish via technique a link with the Romantic works of Caspar David Friedrich…<\/h2>\r\n

Extract from Mousse magazine 17.07.2019, \u201cMemoria del sublime il paesaggio nel secolo XXI\u201d at Museo Villa dei Cedri, Bellinzona. By Share<\/h2>\r\n

… Aujourd’hui, non seulement les artistes per\u00e7oivent et con\u00e7oivent l’artifice derri\u00e8re toute repr\u00e9sentation de la nature mais en font aussi, litt\u00e9ralement, leur sujet. Les \u00ab biotopes \u00bb du Vaudois Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot en sont une illustration \u00e9loquente : ses repr\u00e9sentations de fruits et de plantes, entrelac\u00e9es de donn\u00e9es informatiques et r\u00e9gies par une esth\u00e9tique num\u00e9rique, \u00e9voquent plus une serre dans un \u00e9trange jardin botanique qu’une nature pr\u00e9serv\u00e9e dans le sauvage. C’est de cette interaction entre le scientifique et l’artifice qu’\u00e9merge le sublime contemporain. Les photographies prises \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re de la pleine lune par le photographe britannique Darren Almond, comme les sculptures de l’artiste allemande Mariele Neudecker avec leur brouillard chimique, r\u00e9tablissent par la technique un lien avec les \u0153uvres romantiques de Caspar David Friedrich…<\/p>\r\n

Extrait dans Mousse magazine 17.07.2019, \u201cMemoria del sublime il paesaggio nel secolo XXI\u201d at Museo Villa dei Cedri, Bellinzona. Par Share<\/p>\r\n

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“Memoria del sublime il paesaggio nel secolo XXI” installation view at Museo Villa dei Cedri, Bellinzona, 2019. Photo: Roberto Pellegrini<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

Seniorweb :\u00a0Schweigen und Stille<\/a>, par Fritz Vollenweider,\u00a024.06.2019 <\/span><\/p>\r\n

CACY :\u00a0Slow num\u00e9rique<\/a>, par Karine Tissot<\/p>\r\n

Le Temps :\u00a0Des tr\u00e9sors d\u2019artistes enfouis sous le futur Mus\u00e9e cantonal des beaux-arts de Lausanne<\/a>, par Elisabeth Chardon<\/p>\r\n

Arc Info : les-vestiges-aseptises-de-frederic-clot<\/a>, par S\u00e9verine Cattin<\/p>\r\n

Le Temps :\u00a0Le peintre Vaudois Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot<\/a>, par Laurence Chauvy<\/p>\r\n

Wall Street International :\u00a0Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot, <\/a>par Simon Baur,\u00a05 APRIL 2013<\/p>\r\n

\"\"Le Grand Th\u00e9\u00e2tre, 2012, Oel auf Leinwand, 180 x 320 cm. Crossinvest collection, Lugano<\/figure>\r\n

Le Temps :\u00a0Le couteau dans la plaie des images<\/a>, par Laurent Wolf<\/p>\r\n

\"L\u2019attribut<\/p>\r\n

Arcinfo : D‘Alberto Giacometti \u00e0 Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot<\/a>, par S\u00e9verine Cattin<\/p>\r\n

RTS :\u00a0Hors-Bord<\/a><\/p>\r\n

Le Temps :\u00a0Sept d\u2019un coup pour deux tailleurs d\u2019images et de mots, par Isabelle Ruf<\/a><\/p>\r\n

Cultureactif, \u00abHors-Bor<\/em>d\u00bb,\u00a0Arnaud Robert et Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot<\/a>, par Francesco Biamonte<\/p>\r\n

CCSParis :\u00a0Le Phare<\/a><\/p>\r\n

La Tribune de Gen\u00e8ve :\u00a0La s\u00e9rie \u00abHors-bord\u00bb bouscule le livre d\u2019art<\/a><\/p>\r\n

LE TEMPS : \u00abHors-Bord<\/em>: images prolif\u00e9rantes\u00bb, par Laurent Wolf<\/p>\r\n

LE COURRIER : \u00abVoyages en outre-monde\u00bb, par Anne Pitteloud<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

WRITINGS EXTRACTS<\/h1>\r\n
\"\"\r\n
Eldorado III, crayon de graphite sur papier fabriano 150x220cm \/ 2011<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

… Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot shows that the visible is a source of enjoyment and threat. His painting recalls the gentle fear in front of the monsters of children\u2019s illustrated books, sweet because they are books, because they are children and because adults who live in the \u201creal\u201d world are there to testify that they are only books and illustrations. But we are not children, there are no parents to reassure us, the disturbing images surround us. The great villain seen is not a legend. The proof? Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot painted it.<\/h2>\r\n

Extract from \u00abQui a peur du grand m\u00e9chant vu\u00bb, Laurent Wolf for PREDATION Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot dessins peintures 2007-2010 ed.\u00a0Art&Fiction, 2011<\/h2>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

… Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot montre que le visible est une source de jouissance et de menace. Sa peinture rappelle la douce frayeur devant les monstres des livres illustr\u00e9s pour enfant, douce parce que ce sont des livres, parce que sont des enfants et que les adultes qui vivent dans le monde \u00ab\u00a0r\u00e9el\u00a0\u00bb sont l\u00e0 pour t\u00e9moigner que ce ne sont que des livres et des illustrations. Mais nous ne sommes pas des enfants, il n\u2019y a pas de parents pour nous rassurer, les images inqui\u00e9tantes nous entourent. Le grand m\u00e9chant vu n\u2019est pas une l\u00e9gende. La preuve\u00a0? Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot l\u2019a peint.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Extrait de\u00a0 \u00ab\u00a0Qui a peur du grand m\u00e9chant vu\u00a0\u00bb, Laurent Wolf pour PREDATION Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot dessins peinture 2007-2010 \u00e9d. Art&Fiction, 2011<\/p>\r\n

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\"\"\r\n
Papiliorama & Big data, huile sur toile 215x312cm \/ 2016<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

… Today, artists not only perceive and conceive the artifice behind any representation of nature but also make it, literally, their subject. Vaud-born Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot\u2019s \u201cbiotopes\u201d are an eloquent illustration of this: his representations of fruit and plants, interwoven with computer data and governed by a digital aesthetic, are more evocative of a greenhouse in a strange botanical garden than of nature preserved in the wild. It is from this interaction between the scientific and artifice that the contemporary sublime emerges. The photographs shot in the light of the full moon by British photographer Darren Almond, like German artist Mariele Neudecker\u2019s sculptures with their chemical fog, re-establish via technique a link with the Romantic works of Caspar David Friedrich…<\/h2>\r\n

Extract from Mousse magazine 17.07.2019, \u201cMemoria del sublime il paesaggio nel secolo XXI\u201d at Museo Villa dei Cedri, Bellinzona. By Share<\/h2>\r\n

… Aujourd’hui, non seulement les artistes per\u00e7oivent et con\u00e7oivent l’artifice derri\u00e8re toute repr\u00e9sentation de la nature mais en font aussi, litt\u00e9ralement, leur sujet. Les \u00ab biotopes \u00bb du Vaudois Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot en sont une illustration \u00e9loquente : ses repr\u00e9sentations de fruits et de plantes, entrelac\u00e9es de donn\u00e9es informatiques et r\u00e9gies par une esth\u00e9tique num\u00e9rique, \u00e9voquent plus une serre dans un \u00e9trange jardin botanique qu’une nature pr\u00e9serv\u00e9e dans le sauvage. C’est de cette interaction entre le scientifique et l’artifice qu’\u00e9merge le sublime contemporain. Les photographies prises \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re de la pleine lune par le photographe britannique Darren Almond, comme les sculptures de l’artiste allemande Mariele Neudecker avec leur brouillard chimique, r\u00e9tablissent par la technique un lien avec les \u0153uvres romantiques de Caspar David Friedrich…<\/p>\r\n

Extrait dans Mousse magazine 17.07.2019, \u201cMemoria del sublime il paesaggio nel secolo XXI\u201d at Museo Villa dei Cedri, Bellinzona. Par Share<\/p>\r\n

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Upload the ghosts, huile sur toile 215x155cm \/ 2022<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

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…Like a certain number of artists who crossed the threshold of abstraction in the 1910s just as the concept of quantum physics and the Theory of Relativity were appearing, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot is developing a type of painting in which the notion of reality results from a thought experiment. For many cosmologists, what we once took to be the Universe in its entirety would be but a tiny fraction of a much vaster whole, namely the multiverse. One of these worlds would be the one we are living in, but the others? What we thought were the fundamental principles of nature are not so absolute. The types and properties of elementary particles and their interactions might vary from one universe to another. Wouldn\u2019t all of these considerations be there to confirm the certainty of the dream, the certainty produced by art? And the visual polysemy offered by Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot\u2019s paintings? \u201cAnd what if we trusted fiction? Since time immemorial in all cultures, we have used a limitless amount of energy in telling ourselves stories \u2013 there must be some reason behind this strange obsession! We are, to borrow Nancy Huston\u2019s phrase, a “species of tale-tellers.”[3]<\/a><\/sup>…\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n

Extract<\/strong>\u00a0from “The Multiverse” by Karine Tissot<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n

[3]<\/a> Michel Le Bris, Pour l\u2019amour des livres, <\/em>\u00e9ditions Bernard Grasset, Paris,67.<\/h2>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

… Comme un certain nombre d\u2019artistes qui franchissaient le seuil de l\u2019abstraction dans les ann\u00e9es 1910 au moment o\u00f9 apparaissait la notion de physique quantique et la th\u00e9orie de la relativit\u00e9, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot d\u00e9veloppe une peinture o\u00f9 la notion de r\u00e9alit\u00e9 r\u00e9sulte d\u2019une exp\u00e9rience de pens\u00e9e. Pour de nombreux cosmologistes, ce que nous pensions \u00eatre l’Univers dans son int\u00e9gralit\u00e9 ne serait qu’une infime partie d’un ensemble bien plus vaste : le multivers. Dont l’un de ces mondes serait celui o\u00f9 nous vivons, mais les autres ? Ce que nous pensions \u00eatre les principes fondamentaux de la nature ne serait plus si absolu. Les types et propri\u00e9t\u00e9s des particules \u00e9l\u00e9mentaires et de leurs interactions pourraient varier d’un univers \u00e0 l’autre. Toutes ces consid\u00e9rations ne seraient-elles pas l\u00e0 pour confirmer la certitude du r\u00eave produite par l\u2019art ? Et la polys\u00e9mie visuelle offerte par les toiles de Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot ? \u00ab Et si nous faisions confiance \u00e0 la fiction ? Depuis le fond des \u00e2ges, dans toutes les cultures, nous d\u00e9ployons une \u00e9nergie sans limites pour nous raconter des histoires \u2013 \u00e0 cette \u00e9trange manie, il doit bien y avoir une raison ! Nous sommes, pour reprendre l’expression de Nancy Huston, une “esp\u00e8ce fabulatrice”3.<\/p>\r\n

Extrait de \u00ab Le Multivers \u00bb\u00a0par\u00a0Karine Tissot<\/p>\r\n

[3]<\/a> Michel Le Bris, Pour l\u2019amour des livres, <\/em>\u00e9ditions Bernard Grasset, Paris p. 67<\/p>\r\n

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\"L\u2019attribut\r\n
Nuage, huile sur toile 210x322cm \/ 2020<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n

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THE MULTIVERSE<\/strong><\/h1>\r\n

At a time when the immersive experiences of augmented reality are making their way into all the domains of culture, when 3D printing has become democratized to the point of being in the home even, when high-tech production is increasingly part and parcel of commonplace tools, we are now seeing works of such sophistication \u2013 a workmanship that is ideal, smooth, and without a trace of the human hand \u2013 that no artist could have turned them out, even after thousands of hours of work. With all the new mediums springing up in the world of forms, artists are hastening to appropriate or conceptualize them while others are choosing to resist. Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot is among the latter, extending the centuries-old tradition of oil painting. In light of a culture with global aspirations, in a society that lives at the frenzied pace of channel surfing, hyperactivity, and digital addiction, we must admit that Clot\u2019s position stands athwart the avalanche of images being produced nowadays, the spontaneous shots realized by everyone ever since smartphones have taken over daily life. Without being detached from the world and its technological innovations, always borrowing something from mass-media images and communications, this artist from the north of the Canton of Vaud focuses on situations where reality borders on fiction and manipulates certain digital codes, which he mixes in with his painting in a singular dialogue. Echoing the slow trends \u2013 slow food, slow movement, slow architecture, slow tourism \u2013 Clot is, it would seem, developing a form of \u201cslow digital.\u201d He has found in this realm, going back five years now, an infinite resource for motifs, an inexhaustible source of inspiration.<\/h2>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

As an enlightened, self-taught artist, Clot masters all the technical parameters of painting, the hues, the densities, the glazes, and the modes of any composition \u2013 line, form, colors, light, proportions. The relationship to the digital and its transcription on canvas give rise to a letting go and have led his work down a path that has resisted easy discovery in a history of art that is both dense and fascinating. In the studio, before taking up his brushes, Clot, who likes to store visuals on his computer, first makes an exacting choice of images while deliberately heightening their pixelization. \u201cWhen there are no longer any rounded forms, the landscape is changed,\u201d the artist points out. Indeed, straight lines and right angles do not exist in nature. But they do take over his pictures, which are taken over in turn by plant motifs. Like a form of automatic writing, pixels translated into the oily pigment are microscopic horizontals and verticals. Clearly, Clot seeks in this way not so much to glorify the Digital Age with its promise of freedom or efficiency, as to inscribe in a contemporary idiom the rich heritage of art history. So, no scotch tape to help him to block out his shapes; he only works freehand, his eye glued to the image elaborated on screen. Touch-ups are still possible, as are slip-ups or one form contaminating another. He puts his faith in the gesture that is fashioning the picture. And in the time it takes to complete it. Whether that is counted in weeks or months, there is an indisputable pleasure in immersing yourself in the picture to create a world that is all its own.<\/h2>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

Clot works in large formats[1]<\/a> that are quickly rendered illegible close up due to the accumulation of brushstrokes. In the slow process of producing a picture, the more the exercise of painting is engaged on the canvas, the more the artist\u2019s mind is freed, plunged in a \u201ccosmetics of the cosmos,\u201d to borrow one of the artist\u2019s expressions. For this plethora of signs without a specific form acts a bit like a constellation that can be read at another level so long as you step back from it. Doing so you go from \u201cdigital lace\u201d to a vast two-color landscape, ideal, surreal or invented, suspended, aerial, submerged beneath the sea. This dual point of view on the painting feeds into the storyline of a composition that goes far beyond the simple exercise of copying something out. The living expressive imprecision of the gesture allows the imagination to find unsuspected life there \u2013 insects seem to swarm in certain areas, references to video games can be seen just beneath the surface, sometimes looking fairly familiar, and sometimes like the reflections of a story from far away. At a distance, the canvas holds together in all its details. It plays with the position of the gaze as in Impressionist works, where, given enough space, the juxtaposed colors allow the eye to effect their \u201ccombination,\u201d to \u201cconfuse\u201d two primary colors and see a secondary one. It is a technique, let\u2019s not forget, that gradually enabled painting to break free of the outer world, which it was depicting only incidentally by then. Seurat\u2019s pointillist paintings soon followed with their juxtaposition of pigments, which gained in heightened luminosity. Although developing a noncolor painting, Clot is clearly in line with extending the principle whereby it is up to the viewer to reconstruct the view and forge a synthesis of perception.<\/h2>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

Between black-and-white micro- and macrocosms, his paintings present an unfinished state, as if in development, which has been halted on the canvas to be offered not only to the eye but equally to the mind. This \u201csuspended\u201d state leaves room for hesitation, suggestion, maybe the unspoken, enriching a variety of possible storylines \u2013 even if the theme that mainly emerges is the landscape. Landscapes devoid of horizons that have found their own space. Landscapes devoid of inhabitants, at most crossed by wandering silhouettes. An old subject in art history, landscapes have actually become in Clot\u2019s work a pretext for moving his darting brush down the monochrome path of an emerald blue that stretches out on the background. The latter \u2013 the result of several coats of paint \u2013 is one with the canvas and grabs the eye just as digital screens absorb the head in deep moments of concentration. While understood for a very long time only as portals to another world, those screens are now objects that are anchored in our day-to-day reality. We must recognize that when we are \u201con line,\u201d we are still in material space and that the more the world becomes digital, the more the digital is intrinsically linked to real life. And to painting, if we consider Clot\u2019s work. Whereas painting has sought to open up perspectives from a two-dimensional support since the Renaissance, with Clot it is steeped in a form of plane luminescence emanating from the monochrome backdrop of his pictures. To which he applies angular brushstrokes made up of small squares.<\/h2>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

\u201cThe square is not a subconscious form. It is the creation of intuitive reason.
The face of the new art.
The square. Is a living, regal infant.
The first step of pure creation in art. Before it there were na\u00efve distortions and copies of nature.
Our world of art has become new, nonobjective, pure.[2]<\/a><\/h2>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

Somewhere in extending the approach of Kazimir Malevich, the self-proclaimed Suprematist and author of the above lines who sought the ultimate point of existence of painting through basic shapes, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot makes the square \u2013 constituent of the pixel \u2013 the absolute reference of his system, that is, the zero form from which any visual composition derives. The vague outlines of the pixel\u2019s \u201cbranches,\u201d its variable inclination, and the precariousness of its balance at times invite us to see it as an element that is filled with emotion. Which enables Clot\u2019s paintings to fully experience a narrative dimension while not being reduced to soulless digital displays. Raised to the level of a signal protagonist in \u00c9l\u00e9ments<\/em> (2014, oil on canvas, 80\u00a0x\u00a060cm), the pixel should be understood in the artist\u2019s work as a dynamic form then, slightly unstable and opening on an infinite number of possible combinations, a cardinal sign.<\/h2>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

Like Piet Mondrian, who created his own system and gradually arrived at abstraction, Clot employs a \u201csign\u201d in order to immediately translate a thing without having to represent it. The parallel with the Dutch-born painter is all the more justifiable when you discover the monumental motherboards the Vaudois artist has recently been painting. Everything seems to suggest in fact that we are visiting a city from high overhead. Manhattan? A divided island of crisscrossing straight lines, a checkerboard map without hierarchy or favoritism? A perfect image for translation in paint, which Mondrian once considered, too, as confirmation of his idea that the essence of the universe could be reduced to a geometrical structure. New York is a landscape that proved his painting right in the 1940s. With this new motif, Clot is basing his output on another aspect of the digital \u2013 the technical element that enables all the functions of the computer by definition \u2013 formally returning to a more urban atmosphere, abandoning the vegetal for a vertically structured circulation. This allows him to play off a feeling of balance while avoiding symmetry, and at the same time to assert a flatness peculiar to paintings.<\/h2>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

Finally, dominated by an almost graphic atmosphere, Clot\u2019s painting is often revealed by what we might call a negative treatment of forms. As if you had to invert the world to better grasp it, and stand the setting on its head to draw out its density. It is an upheaval that echoes the scientific observations of that new category in physics, the so-called \u201cdark\u201d matter, which differs from the matter we had known up to that point. The research carried out in the last few decades to identify its nature promises to open new horizons vis-\u00e0-vis our understanding of reality. Like a certain number of artists who crossed the threshold of abstraction in the 1910s just as the concept of quantum physics and the Theory of Relativity were appearing, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot is developing a type of painting in which the notion of reality results from a thought experiment. For many cosmologists, what we once took to be the Universe in its entirety would be but a tiny fraction of a much vaster whole, namely the multiverse. One of these worlds would be the one we are living in, but the others? What we thought were the fundamental principles of nature are not so absolute. The types and properties of elementary particles and their interactions might vary from one universe to another. Wouldn\u2019t all of these considerations be there to confirm the certainty of the dream, the certainty produced by art? And the visual polysemy offered by Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot\u2019s paintings? \u201cAnd what if we trusted fiction? Since time immemorial in all cultures, we have used a limitless amount of energy in telling ourselves stories \u2013 there must be some reason behind this strange obsession! We are, to borrow Nancy Huston\u2019s phrase, a \u2018species of tale-tellers.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/h2>\r\n

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\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

Karine Tissot<\/h2>\r\n

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\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n
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[1]<\/a> The formats generally measure 2.15 x 3.10\u00a0m.<\/h2>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

[2]<\/a> See Kazimir Malevich, \u201cFrom Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Painterly Realism (1915). https:\/\/monoskop.org\/images\/b\/bc\/Malevich_Kazimir_1915_1976_From_Cubism_and_Futurism_to_Suprematism.pdf<\/a> (consulted 23.05.2019).<\/h2>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

[3]<\/a> Michel Le Bris, Pour l\u2019amour des livres, <\/em>\u00e9ditions Bernard Grasset, Paris,67.<\/h2>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

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\u00a0<\/h3>\r\n

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LE MULTIVERS<\/strong><\/h1>\r\n

\u00c0 l\u2019heure o\u00f9 les exp\u00e9riences immersives de r\u00e9alit\u00e9 augment\u00e9e s\u2019\u00e9tendent dans tous les domaines de la culture, o\u00f9 la photocopie tridimensionnelle s\u2019est d\u00e9mocratis\u00e9e au point de devenir m\u00eame domestique, o\u00f9 la production high-tech fait de plus en plus partie des moyens usuels, apparaissent des \u0153uvres d’une sophistication telle \u2013 \u00e0 la facture id\u00e9ale, lisse, sans trace de la main humaine \u2013 qu\u2019aucun artiste n’aurait pu les r\u00e9aliser, m\u00eame au prix de milliers d’heures de travail. Comme tous les nouveaux m\u00e9diums surgissant dans l’univers des formes, les artistes s’empressent de les d\u00e9tourner ou de les conceptualiser, quand d\u2019autres agissent en r\u00e9sistance. C\u2019est le cas de Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot qui prolonge la tradition pluris\u00e9culaire de la peinture \u00e0 l\u2019huile. Face \u00e0 une culture qui se veut globalis\u00e9e, dans une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 qui vit au rythme effr\u00e9n\u00e9 du zapping, de l\u2019hyperactivit\u00e9 et de la d\u00e9pendance au num\u00e9rique, force est de constater que la position de Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot se situe \u00e0 contrecourant de l\u2019avalanche d\u2019images produites aujourd\u2019hui, des prises de vue spontan\u00e9es r\u00e9alis\u00e9es par tout un chacun depuis que les smartphones ont envahi le quotidien. Sans \u00eatre d\u00e9tach\u00e9 du monde et de ses innovations technologiques, empruntant toujours quelque-chose aux images et \u00e0 la communication de masse, l\u2019artiste du Nord vaudois s\u2019int\u00e9resse aux situations o\u00f9 la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 c\u00f4toie la fiction et manipule certains codes du num\u00e9rique qu\u2019il m\u00eale \u00e0 sa peinture dans un dialogue singulier. En r\u00e9sonance avec les tendances slow<\/em> \u2013 slow food<\/em>, slow movement<\/em>, slow architecture<\/em>, slow tourism<\/em> \u2013, il d\u00e9velopperait une forme de \u00ab\u00a0slow num\u00e9rique\u00a0\u00bb. En ce territoire, il a trouv\u00e9 depuis cinq ans une ressource infinie de motifs, une source intarissable d\u2019inspiration.<\/h2>\r\n

En autodidacte \u00e9clair\u00e9, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot ma\u00eetrise tous les param\u00e8tres techniques de la peinture que sont les nuances, les densit\u00e9s, les glacis et les modes de toute composition \u2013 trait, forme, couleurs, lumi\u00e8re, proportions. La relation au num\u00e9rique et sa transcription sur toile permettent un l\u00e2cher-prise, et ont orient\u00e9 son travail sur une voie qu\u2019il n\u2019\u00e9tait pas ais\u00e9 de trouver dans une histoire de l\u2019art aussi dense que passionnante. Dans l\u2019atelier, avant de se saisir de ses pinceaux, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot, qui accumule volontiers des visuels sur son ordinateur, proc\u00e8de \u00e0 un choix bien pr\u00e9cis d\u2019images, dont il accentue d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9ment la pixellisation. \u00ab\u00a0Quand il n\u2019y a plus de formes arrondies, le paysage est modifi\u00e9\u00a0\u00bb, pr\u00e9cise-t-il. L\u2019orthogonalit\u00e9 n\u2019existe en effet pas dans la nature. Mais elle envahit ses toiles envahies \u00e0 leur tour de motifs v\u00e9g\u00e9taux. \u00c0 la mani\u00e8re d\u2019une \u00e9criture automatique, les pixels traduits dans la p\u00e2te huileuse de la peinture sont des micro verticales et horizontales. On v\u00e9rifiera que Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot cherche de cette mani\u00e8re moins \u00e0 faire l\u2019apologie de l\u2019\u00e8re du num\u00e9rique avec ses promesses de libert\u00e9 ou d\u2019efficacit\u00e9, qu\u2019\u00e0 inscrire dans un langage contemporain le riche h\u00e9ritage de l\u2019histoire de l\u2019art. Pas de scotch pour l\u2019aider \u00e0 d\u00e9tourer les formes, la main lev\u00e9e uniquement et l\u2019\u0153il riv\u00e9 sur l\u2019image \u00e9labor\u00e9e sur l\u2019\u00e9cran. Les retouches sont possibles tout comme les d\u00e9rapages ou la contamination d\u2019une forme vers une autre. La confiance est donn\u00e9e au geste qui fa\u00e7onne le tableau. Et au temps qu\u2019il faut pour l\u2019aboutir. Que cela se compte en semaines ou en mois, il y a un plaisir ind\u00e9niable \u00e0 s\u2019immerger dans la toile pour cr\u00e9er un monde \u00e0 part enti\u00e8re.<\/h2>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot travaille sur de grands formats[1]<\/a> bient\u00f4t rendus illisibles de pr\u00e8s par l\u2019accumulation des touches. Dans le lent processus de fabrication de l\u2019\u0153uvre, plus l\u2019exercice de la peinture est engag\u00e9 sur la toile et plus l\u2019esprit de son auteur se lib\u00e8re, plong\u00e9 dans une \u00ab\u00a0cosm\u00e9tique du cosmos\u00a0\u00bb pour reprendre ses termes. Car cette pl\u00e9thore de signes sans forme sp\u00e9cifique agit un peu comme une constellation qui peut se lire \u00e0 un autre niveau, \u00e0 condition que l\u2019on prenne du recul. On passe ainsi de la \u00ab\u00a0dentelle num\u00e9rique\u00a0\u00bb \u00e0 un vaste paysage bichrome, r\u00eav\u00e9, surr\u00e9aliste ou invent\u00e9, suspendu, a\u00e9rien, sous-marin. Ce double point de vue sur l\u2019\u0153uvre nourrit le sc\u00e9nario d\u2019une composition qui d\u00e9passe largement le simple exercice de la copie. L\u2019impr\u00e9cision vivante et expressive du geste permet \u00e0 l\u2019imaginaire d\u2019y trouver une vie insoup\u00e7onn\u00e9e \u2013 des insectes semblent grouiller par endroits, des r\u00e9f\u00e9rences \u00e0 des jeux vid\u00e9o se lisent en filigrane, parfois sous des airs familiers, d\u2019autres fois comme les reflets d\u2019un conte \u00e9loign\u00e9. Avec la distance, la toile tient dans tous ses d\u00e9tails. Elle joue de la position du regard comme les \u0153uvres impressionnistes, o\u00f9, \u00e0 un espace suffisant, les couleurs juxtapos\u00e9es permettent \u00e0 l\u2019\u0153il de cr\u00e9er leur \u00ab m\u00e9lange \u00bb, de \u00ab\u00a0confondre\u00a0\u00bb deux primaires jusqu\u2019\u00e0 en voir une secondaire. Une technique qui, rappelons-le, permit progressivement \u00e0 la peinture de se d\u00e9tacher du monde ext\u00e9rieur qu\u2019elle ne repr\u00e9sentait plus qu\u2019accessoirement. Ont suivi les toiles pointillistes de Seurat avec une juxtaposition des pigments qui gagnait davantage encore en luminosit\u00e9. Bien que d\u00e9veloppant une peinture de non-couleurs, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot s\u2019inscrit dans le prolongement de ce principe o\u00f9 il appartient au spectateur de reconstruire la vision, d\u2019op\u00e9rer une synth\u00e8se de la perception.<\/h2>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

Entre micro- et macrocosmes noir et blanc, ses peintures offrent un \u00e9tat non-fini, comme en devenir, qui se serait arr\u00eat\u00e9 sur la toile pour s\u2019offrir non seulement au regard, mais \u00e9galement \u00e0 la r\u00e9flexion. Cet \u00e9tat \u00ab\u00a0en suspension\u00a0\u00bb laisse une place \u00e0 l\u2019h\u00e9sitation, au sous-entendu, au non-dit peut-\u00eatre, enrichissant ainsi une diversit\u00e9 de scenarii possibles. M\u00eame si la th\u00e9matique qui en ressort principalement est le paysage. Des paysages sans horizons, qui ont trouv\u00e9 leur propre espace. Des paysages sans habitants, travers\u00e9s tout au plus par des silhouettes vagabondes. Sujet ancien dans l\u2019histoire de l\u2019art, le paysage est, en r\u00e9alit\u00e9, devenu chez Clot pr\u00e9texte \u00e0 faire vibrer le pinceau sur la piste monochrome d\u2019un bleu \u00e9meraude \u00e9tir\u00e9 \u00e0 l\u2019arri\u00e8re-plan. Ce dernier \u2013 r\u00e9sultant de plusieurs couches \u2013 fait corps avec la toile et happe le regard comme les \u00e9crans num\u00e9riques absorbent la t\u00eate dans de profonds moments de concentration. Eux qui pendant longtemps n\u2019ont \u00e9t\u00e9 compris que comme des portails sur un autre monde, sont d\u00e9sormais des objets ancr\u00e9s dans notre r\u00e9alit\u00e9. Il nous faut reconna\u00eetre que lorsque nous sommes \u00ab\u00a0en ligne\u00a0\u00bb, nous sommes encore dans l\u2019espace mat\u00e9riel et que plus le monde devient digital, plus le num\u00e9rique se lie intrins\u00e8quement \u00e0 la vraie vie. Et \u00e0 la peinture si l\u2019on consid\u00e8re le travail de Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot\u00a0: alors que cette derni\u00e8re a cherch\u00e9 \u00e0 ouvrir des perspectives \u00e0 partir d\u2019un support bidimensionnel depuis la Renaissance, la voil\u00e0 impr\u00e9gn\u00e9e chez lui par une forme de luminescence plane, \u00e9manant d\u2019un cama\u00efeu install\u00e9 en arri\u00e8re-fond. Sur lequel s\u2019int\u00e8grent des touches anguleuses faites de petits carr\u00e9s.<\/h2>\r\n

\u00ab\u00a0Le carr\u00e9 n\u2019est pas une forme subconsciente. C\u2019est la cr\u00e9ation de la raison intuitive.
Le visage de l\u2019art nouveau.
Le carr\u00e9 est un enfant royal plein de vie.
C\u2019est le premier pas de la cr\u00e9ation pure en art. Avant elle, il y avait des laideurs na\u00efves et des copies de la nature.
Notre monde de l\u2019art est devenu nouveau, non figuratif, pur[2]<\/a>\u00a0\u00bb.<\/h2>\r\n

Quelque part dans le prolongement de Kasimir Malevitch, supr\u00e9matiste autoproclam\u00e9 et auteur de ces lignes, qui cherchait le point ultime d\u2019existence de la peinture au travers de formes basiques, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot fait du carr\u00e9 \u2013 constituant le pixel \u2013 le r\u00e9f\u00e9rent absolu de son syst\u00e8me, c\u2019est-\u00e0-dire la forme z\u00e9ro \u00e0 partir de laquelle toute composition visuelle est d\u00e9riv\u00e9e. Les contours incertains des \u00ab\u00a0branches\u00a0\u00bb du pixel, son inclinaison variable, la pr\u00e9carit\u00e9 de son \u00e9quilibre par moments invitent \u00e0 le consid\u00e9rer comme un \u00e9l\u00e9ment charg\u00e9 d\u2019\u00e9motion. Ce qui permet aux toiles de Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot de vivre pleinement une dimension narrative et de ne pas \u00eatre r\u00e9duites \u00e0 des affichages num\u00e9riques sans \u00e2me. \u00c9rig\u00e9 en protagoniste phare dans la toile \u00c9l\u00e9ments<\/em> (2014, huile sur toile 80x60cm), le pixel est donc \u00e0 comprendre chez l\u2019artiste comme une forme dynamique, l\u00e9g\u00e8rement instable, ouverte vers un infini de combinaisons possibles, un signe cardinal.<\/h2>\r\n

\u00c0 l\u2019instar de Piet Mondrian qui avait cr\u00e9\u00e9 son propre syst\u00e8me pour arriver progressivement \u00e0 l\u2019abstraction, Clot emploie un \u00ab\u00a0signe\u00a0\u00bb afin de traduire imm\u00e9diatement une chose sans avoir \u00e0 la repr\u00e9senter. Le rapprochement avec le peintre n\u00e9erlandais se justifie d\u2019autant plus quand on d\u00e9couvre les cartes m\u00e8res monumentales peintes plus r\u00e9cemment par l\u2019artiste vaudois. Tout porte \u00e0 croire en effet que l\u2019on visite une ville d\u2019un point de vue z\u00e9nithal. Manhattan? Une \u00eele divis\u00e9e, quadrill\u00e9e, un plan en damier sans hi\u00e9rarchie, sans favoritisme\u00a0? Une image parfaite \u00e0 traduire en peinture que Mondrian avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 consid\u00e9r\u00e9e comme la confirmation \u00e0 sa th\u00e8se selon laquelle l\u2019essence de l\u2019univers se r\u00e9duirait \u00e0 une structure g\u00e9om\u00e9trique. New York est un paysage qui donnait raison \u00e0 sa peinture dans les ann\u00e9es 1940. Avec ce nouveau motif, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot s\u2019appuie sur un autre aspect du num\u00e9rique \u2013 l\u2019\u00e9l\u00e9ment technique permettant toutes les fonctions de l\u2019ordinateur par d\u00e9finition \u2013, et revient formellement \u00e0 une ambiance plus urbaine, d\u00e9laissant le v\u00e9g\u00e9tal au profit d\u2019une circulation structur\u00e9e par la verticalit\u00e9. Ceci lui permet de jouer sur un sentiment d\u2019\u00e9quilibre tout en \u00e9chappant \u00e0 la sym\u00e9trie et d\u2019affirmer en m\u00eame temps une plan\u00e9it\u00e9 propre \u00e0 la toile.<\/h2>\r\n

Enfin, domin\u00e9e par une ambiance quasi graphique, sa peinture se r\u00e9v\u00e8le souvent par un traitement des formes en n\u00e9gatif. Comme s\u2019il fallait inverser le monde pour mieux le saisir, renverser le d\u00e9cor pour en extraire sa densit\u00e9. Un basculement qui fait \u00e9cho aux observations scientifiques de cette nouvelle cat\u00e9gorie de mati\u00e8re, dite \u00ab\u00a0noire\u00a0\u00bb, diff\u00e9rente de la mati\u00e8re connue jusqu\u2019alors. Les recherches men\u00e9es ces derni\u00e8res d\u00e9cennies pour identifier sa nature promettent d\u2019ouvrir de nouveaux horizons \u00e0 notre compr\u00e9hension de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9. Comme un certain nombre d\u2019artistes qui franchissaient le seuil de l\u2019abstraction dans les ann\u00e9es 1910 au moment o\u00f9 apparaissait la notion de physique quantique et la th\u00e9orie de la relativit\u00e9, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot d\u00e9veloppe une peinture o\u00f9 la notion de r\u00e9alit\u00e9 r\u00e9sulte d\u2019une exp\u00e9rience de pens\u00e9e. Pour de nombreux cosmologistes, ce que nous pensions \u00eatre l’Univers dans son int\u00e9gralit\u00e9 ne serait qu’une infime partie d’un ensemble bien plus vaste\u00a0: le multivers. Dont l’un de ces mondes serait celui o\u00f9 nous vivons, mais les autres\u00a0? Ce que nous pensions \u00eatre les principes fondamentaux de la nature ne serait plus si absolu. Les types et propri\u00e9t\u00e9s des particules \u00e9l\u00e9mentaires et de leurs interactions pourraient varier d’un univers \u00e0 l’autre. Toutes ces consid\u00e9rations ne seraient-elles pas l\u00e0 pour confirmer la certitude du r\u00eave\u00a0produite par l\u2019art\u00a0? Et la polys\u00e9mie visuelle offerte par les toiles de Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Clot\u00a0? \u00ab\u00a0Et si nous faisions confiance \u00e0 la fiction ? Depuis le fond des \u00e2ges, dans toutes les cultures, nous d\u00e9ployons une \u00e9nergie sans limites pour nous raconter des histoires \u2013 \u00e0 cette \u00e9trange manie, il doit bien y avoir une raison ! Nous sommes, pour reprendre l’expression de Nancy Huston, une \u00ab\u00a0esp\u00e8ce fabulatrice”[3]<\/a>\u00bb.<\/h2>\r\n

Karine Tissot<\/h2>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

[1]<\/a> mesurant g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement 2,15 x 3,10 m\u00e8tres<\/h2>\r\n

[2]<\/a> Kasimir Mal\u00e9vitch cit\u00e9 dans \u00ab Du cubisme et du futurisme au supr\u00e9matisme. Le nouveau r\u00e9alisme pictural \u00bb, 1916, \u00c9crits sur l\u2019art<\/em>, L\u2019\u00c2ge d\u2019homme, Lausanne, 1974. Traduction Jean-Claude et Valentine Marcad\u00e9 dans Art en th\u00e9orie 1900-1990. Une anthologie par Charles Harrison et Paul Wood, Hazan<\/h2>\r\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

[3]<\/a> Michel Le Bris, Pour l\u2019amour des livres, <\/em>\u00e9ditions Bernard Grasset, Paris p. 67<\/h2>\r\n

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Press Bilan : Artgen\u00e8ve s’est sagement mis sur orbite mercredi \u00e0 Palexpo. https:\/\/www.bilan.ch\/story\/ed-artgeneve25-764079158736, par Etienne…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"rs_blank_template":"","rs_page_bg_color":"#ffffff","slide_template_v7":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-966","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frederic-clot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frederic-clot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frederic-clot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frederic-clot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frederic-clot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=966"}],"version-history":[{"count":116,"href":"https:\/\/www.frederic-clot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4188,"href":"https:\/\/www.frederic-clot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/966\/revisions\/4188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frederic-clot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}