This exhibition is part of Le temps d'un été

40mcube
48, avenue Sergent Maginot
35000 Rennes

40mcube presents a solo show by Florian & Michael Quistrebert. The artists deploy a new series of esoteric and optical works produced for the occasion.

In 2008, Florian & Michael Quistrebert presented one of their first solo exhibitions in France, Abstract Lady Guardian, at 40mcube. Since then, their career has continued with numerous residencies, monographic and group exhibitions in France and abroad, awards… In residence in New York and then at the Rijksacademy in Amsterdam, they were nominated for the Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2014. They are represented by the Crèvecœur gallery in Paris, by Upstream Gallery in Amsterdam and by 313 Art Project (Seoul).

Florian & Michaël Quistrebert usually develop their work in series, either on canvases and videos. Each time exploring different aspects of painting, they mix references as varied as romantic painting, minimal and psychedelic music, minimalism, geometric abstraction, or optical art. These references are materialized in painting but also in various matters such as sealants, to which they sometimes integrate electronic elements such as diodes, or mobile and automated presentation devices. Following a path, their work has thus evolved through several phases, colourist, materialist, even technological, but with a common point: trying to produce a fascinating, hypnotic effect that absorbs the person facing the work.

Invited by 40mcube on the occasion of the event Le temps d'un été , carried out by the city of Rennes, Florian & Michaël Quistrebert are part of the exhibition La couleur crue at the museum of fine art of Rennes with a video installation that dematerialises color. At 40mcube, the artists present a solo show with a new series of paintings produced for the occasion.

Constantly implementing ambivalences, even contradictions, the artists present in their exhibition a kind of skyline composed of paintings that are both esoteric and optical, resembling what they call flamboyant minimalism.

Often referring to music, their paintings can be seen as visual music, with references to the minimal and psychedelic experiments of Terry Riley, Brian Eno, Eliane Radigue or Laurie Spiegel. Modular like synthesizers, these paintings include repetitions, associations, gradations of forms and entanglements that can be perceived as visual versions of sound effects such as reverb, delay, echo, distortion and saturation. So many simple and precise forms which, repeated, superimposed, evoke buildings as well as infinite spaces, and symbols to be filled with meaning.