JOHN M ARMLEDER, Cercle et Carré, 1987
Sometimes an edition is loaded with information about the artist’s mindset while its appearance suggests the opposite, for a part due to its self-evidence. Such a piece is ‘Cercle et Carré’ with its geometrical forms, the aesthetics of simplicity, the functionality of formal design, the ambition of the avant-garde and humour; it is all there.
John Armleder is renowned for re-introducing abstract art in a dominating one-way art market in the early eighties of the previous century, for in his works referring to predecessors in art history (hence the title ‘Cercle et Carré’) and for ‘making art that is comparable to making a B-film’as he describes it. In this sense this multiple is as banal as that. ‘Cercle et Carré’ has the look of a modernist Italian design, yet all three parts have been composed by John Armleder, as if it is an installation. He put together lamp, pedestal and a piece of metal grid, then switched on the light.
KvG