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Lot Essay
A protagonist of the European avant-garde, Walter Leblanc was at the forefront of abstraction in the 1960s. Leblanc shared an ambition to defy the limitations of painting and its illusions of space with the influential Zero group through uniformity of colour, structure and material.
It is in 1959, with his introduction of Torsion that Leblanc finds an aesthetic vocabulary that articulates this search for a new dimension in painting and allows him to investigate an entirely new spectrum of spatial possibilities. 'The torsion allowed me to fractionate the light in an ordered and controlled manner without having to revert to a écriture of paint like Van Gogh's brushwork' (Walter Leblanc as quoted in: N. Leblanc & D. Everarts de Velp-Seynaeve, Walter Leblanc. Catalogue raisonné, Ghent 1997, p 34). Incising polyvinyl canvases in a regular grid and turning the vertical strips, the illusion of three-dimensionality is created through the object itself. As the artist explains ‘To give the surface a third dimension was a constant concern. It was by pivoting the surface on itself […] that the surface gradually became tri-dimensional, by simply rotating on itself’ (W. Leblanc in N. Leblanc; D. Everarts de Velp-Seynaeve, Walter Leblanc. Catalogue raisonné, Ghent 1997). Trapping light in the strips’ reflection, the reception of the work depends on the mobility and sensibility of the viewer. Mobilo-Statique is exemplary of the sophisticated evolution of Torsions as the rhythmic oscillation of contrasting hues of black, white and yellow extends the tension between depth and flat surfaces.
Executed in the early 1960s, Mobilo-Statique dates from a pivotal moment in the artist’s career where Leblanc’s place in the avant-garde scene was cemented. Using alternative materials, Leblanc differentiates his work from the spontaneous gestures of art informel which dominated the more conventional art scene at this time. As with Piero Manzoni, whose work was exhibited alongside Leblanc’s in Anti-Peinture at G58 in Antwerp in 1962, Leblanc broke with traditional techniques of construction. It is this watershed exhibition that solidified Leblanc’s status as a key figure in the avant-garde, redefining ‘works from different movements that have transcended the stage of traditional painting by means of optical and physical phenomena, invading space without being sculpture. This art has a new dimension and is measured in variations, movements, vibrations, light; born of new experiences it is neither figurative nor abstract’ (W. Leblanc in N. Leblanc; D. Everarts de Velp-Seynaeve, Walter Leblanc. Catalogue raisonné, Ghent 1997).
Rather than epitomizing a single work as the pinnacle of his plastic research, Leblanc attempts to fix the different phases of development in successive works. Comparing the understanding of his work to musical expression, where the succession of notes, tones and chords form a melody in our memory, Leblanc intended for his oeuvre to be perceived in continuation. Understood through this prism, Mobilo-Statique bears witness to Leblanc’s thought and the vital role he played in the birth of kinetic art in Europe.
It is in 1959, with his introduction of Torsion that Leblanc finds an aesthetic vocabulary that articulates this search for a new dimension in painting and allows him to investigate an entirely new spectrum of spatial possibilities. 'The torsion allowed me to fractionate the light in an ordered and controlled manner without having to revert to a écriture of paint like Van Gogh's brushwork' (Walter Leblanc as quoted in: N. Leblanc & D. Everarts de Velp-Seynaeve, Walter Leblanc. Catalogue raisonné, Ghent 1997, p 34). Incising polyvinyl canvases in a regular grid and turning the vertical strips, the illusion of three-dimensionality is created through the object itself. As the artist explains ‘To give the surface a third dimension was a constant concern. It was by pivoting the surface on itself […] that the surface gradually became tri-dimensional, by simply rotating on itself’ (W. Leblanc in N. Leblanc; D. Everarts de Velp-Seynaeve, Walter Leblanc. Catalogue raisonné, Ghent 1997). Trapping light in the strips’ reflection, the reception of the work depends on the mobility and sensibility of the viewer. Mobilo-Statique is exemplary of the sophisticated evolution of Torsions as the rhythmic oscillation of contrasting hues of black, white and yellow extends the tension between depth and flat surfaces.
Executed in the early 1960s, Mobilo-Statique dates from a pivotal moment in the artist’s career where Leblanc’s place in the avant-garde scene was cemented. Using alternative materials, Leblanc differentiates his work from the spontaneous gestures of art informel which dominated the more conventional art scene at this time. As with Piero Manzoni, whose work was exhibited alongside Leblanc’s in Anti-Peinture at G58 in Antwerp in 1962, Leblanc broke with traditional techniques of construction. It is this watershed exhibition that solidified Leblanc’s status as a key figure in the avant-garde, redefining ‘works from different movements that have transcended the stage of traditional painting by means of optical and physical phenomena, invading space without being sculpture. This art has a new dimension and is measured in variations, movements, vibrations, light; born of new experiences it is neither figurative nor abstract’ (W. Leblanc in N. Leblanc; D. Everarts de Velp-Seynaeve, Walter Leblanc. Catalogue raisonné, Ghent 1997).
Rather than epitomizing a single work as the pinnacle of his plastic research, Leblanc attempts to fix the different phases of development in successive works. Comparing the understanding of his work to musical expression, where the succession of notes, tones and chords form a melody in our memory, Leblanc intended for his oeuvre to be perceived in continuation. Understood through this prism, Mobilo-Statique bears witness to Leblanc’s thought and the vital role he played in the birth of kinetic art in Europe.