Henri Michaux and Zao Wou-Ki in the empire of signs
du 5 décembre 2015 au 10 avril 2016
Henri MichauxZao Wou-KiExploring a relationship that is both personal and artistic, the exhibition focuses on the writer and painter Henri Michaux (1899-1984) and the painter Zao Wou-Ki (1920-2013). Arriving from China in France at the beginning of spring 1948, Zao Wou-Ki met Henri Michaux at the end of the following year. This human relationship, which was to last until the poet's death, made up of warm attention on both sides, was also and above all an artistic relationship. Not only did Michaux provide his “endorsement” to the young painter, but his painted and drawn work and that of Zao Wou-Ki share a certain number of choices which bring operational procedures into play: attention to signs, appetite for experimentation, importance of gesture, primacy of movement.
The pieces exhibited mainly came from the collection of rare Henri Michaux editions owned by the Martin Bodmer Foundation, from the collection of Micheline Phankim, Michaux's successor, that of Françoise Marquet, Zao Wou-Ki's successor, and that of Sven Pitseys, a Belgian bibliophile well known to Michaux fans. One-off loans were finally granted, in Switzerland by the Prints Cabinet of the Museum of Art and History of the City of Geneva and by the museums of Winterthur and Locarno, in France by the National Museum of Modern Art (Centre Georges Pompidou) and by the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris. Many of the pieces selected for the exhibition were shown for the first time, and their bringing together constitutes an event in itself.
Curator: Bernard Vouilloux and Jacques Berchtold