We are pleased to present our new exhibition Tensions and Colours – AroundOlle Baertling, echoing the exhibition that the Swedish Institute is currently dedicating to this major artist of abstraction.

The exhibition brings together works that resonate around a shared field of exploration: that of pure, energetically charged colors, whose juxtaposition evokes tensions and sets the surface in motion. Alongside OlleBaertling, we present works by Charles Bézie, Nicholas Bodde, Jean-François Dubreuil, Günter Fruhtrunk, Auguste Herbin, Jean Legros, and Yves Popet.

The common thread lies in the use of flat, colored surfaces, devoid of any volumetric illusion, yet which nonetheless appear resolutely spatial. For Olle Baertling, it was essential that the work be an experience of openness and expansion. In his compositions, the angles remain open: despite the close convergence of two lines, the form never closes in. It simultaneously unfolds broad fields of color that extend beyond the frame, thus tending towards infinity.

In the works presented, colors activate the canvas, revealing their full force at the point of contact, where their boundaries meet. Chromatic contrasts, directions suggested by diagonals, and the coexistence and contrasts of color areas produce effects of advance, retreat, expansion, or reduction. The canvas's boundaries no longer function as closed borders, but rather participate in the organization of a dynamic space.

The canvas becomes a field of forces marking a fundamental shift: space is no longer represented but produced. These tense relationships release a perceptible energy and vibration, where each color, through its intensity and position, creates a shifting equilibrium that continually guides the viewer's gaze.