Laurent Royer. Works

Among the Giorgio Cini Foundation’s traditional cultural activities is the promotion and development of contemporary art. Its interest in this field has recently been further highlighted through the donation of twenty-four works of the French artist Laurent Royer. The donation – made in 2009 by the family of the young artist, who died prematurely in 1994 at the age of only 26 – thus establishes a major collection of his works in Venice.

A selection of works providing a good idea of Royer’s overall artistic development is now on show in the luminous spaces of the Nuova Manica Lunga to offer scholars and users of the refurbished library the opportunity for “contemplation” and reflection duringbreaks from study. Royer’s early works are characterised by a keen sensibility for the material effects of paint, derived from abstract art, and are shaped out in chromatic rhythms weaving refined textures close to the lyrically, soft à-plats works of Olivier Debré, a protagonist of French Abstractionism who exercised a key stylistic influence on Laurent.

The next works in chronological order are oils on canvases entitled Cri de l’être (1989) and Traces (1989). In this case the research becomes more intimate and dramatic, and gives rise to gestural abstract expression, nearer to the disintegrating drives breaking up the impasto, typical of Art Informel. On a prepared ground of paint, characterised by hues of burnt ochre, Royer impetuously traces sweeping black slashes which dynamically probe the space through rotating, centrifugal movements. Painting thus primarily becomes an act bent on highlighting its own existence; before action there is nothing and at the moment action appears before our gaze, we find ourselves, as Royer stresses, at that “critical point of balance between life and death”.

The collection also features four works in the major series La face du monde (1991-1992). These are two large-scale paintings and two experiments, accompanied by the painter’s own lines of verse: “Variations sur la face du monde / L’espace s’est fendu! / Incisé, il s’ouvre sur lui-même / Béance universelle, réceptacle de l’entier / Coupure vive dans le feu de lumière / Clarté / Générescence.” On a ground prepared by applying a mixture of sand and marble dust with coloured pigment, Royer outlines his “faces of the world”.
Resolutely incised signs forge composite faces forcefully dominating the space, reminiscent of silent, solemn, arcane monolithic figures. The face thus becomes a symbolic receptacle in the effort to express an inner vision of the world translated into colour-matter-space-light. There are also some works on fi ne Nepalese paper, making abundant use of collage, which date from the early 1990s. Here the artist seems to favour blue, the colour of the spirit; the darker the blue becomes, the more we are drawn towards the infinite. Royer paints some Nepalese paper fragments blue and then draws rapid signs in black ink, conjuring up enigmatic ideograms. The blue of the spirit is partially clouded over with dark impenetrable zones. The artist also seems to use black for its “structural” value.

The group of works includes a concise representation of the Crucifixion of Christ (1993), rendered with a few rapid brush strokes  capable of conveying a powerful spiritual feeling. As the artist points out: “Ma démarche de peintre n’a pas de clivages, elle tend simplement à retenir l’émotion, l’âme des choses: l’essence de tout et de moi-même… L’émotion est la réalité profonde, spirituelle de ma peinture.”

5 December – 10 January Saturday and Sunday
10.00 – 16.00*

11 January – 28 February
From Monday to Friday
9.00 – 16.30

Saturday and Sunday
10.00 – 16.00*

*During Saturday and Sunday the entrance at the Foundation is allowed just through the guided visits
  Giuded tours are suspended in the month of February, the exibition will be open to the public from Monday to Friday