André du Colombier

Considered one of the most enigmatic artists of his generation, André du Colombier proposes a novel use of imagery in relation to objects, with the aim of creating a new world from a minimal sum of language. His work is nourished by profound reflection on the altered functionality of language, in apparent loss of meaning, thus becoming an abstraction in itself to arrive to the principle of uncertainty.

Du Colombier’s work plays with all levels and registers: a word or phrase is repeated, upper and lower-case letters come into conflict, or else language refers to itself, in a kind of aphasia. Commas and accents have identities of their own, and everything that could be obvious becomes secretive, metaphysical, musical, sound, poetical or philosophical. He questions the very rules of language, along with linguistic structures, graphic traces and their meanings, along an experimental trajectory resembling that of On Kawara or Richard Artschwager.

Despite his birth in Spain, the work of André du Colombier (Barcelona, 1952 – Paris, 2003) was developed outside of this country. Standing apart from any definitory artistic category, he focused his practice on the pressing need to add tension to language and its meaning, employing a diversity of formats, including concrete poetry, mail art, arte povera and conceptualism.

The exhibition at Museu Tàpies is curated by Adam Szymczyk