ALEXANDRE LENOIR: BETWEEN DOGS AND WOLVES

Almine Rech New York, Tribeca is pleased to present Between dogs and wolves, Alexandre Lenoir's sixth solo exhibition with the gallery.

September 6 – October 19, 2024

Lenoir’s meticulous protocols appear in the form of charts for studio assistants and speak to his own removal (his own absence) from the process of painting in search of an image steered by chance, one that he himself could not make, or rather decided not to make since he literally stood out. But here is the inherent in this protocol: while standing out, the artists becomes outstanding in his own absence. The artist shines through his own absence. He reveals himself though his own self-removal. Likening the artist to a conductor or architect, Lenoir draws on the formal and conceptual strategies of pioneering avant-garde artistic movements across the art historical canon, ranging from Les Nabis to Fluxus. 

The works in the exhibition also conjure the presence of Andy Warhol and Alighiero Boetti in Lenoir’s conceptual, or indeed metaphysical, studio practice. Lenoir’s practice can be called “metaphysical” in the simple sense of “meta-physics”—meta: after or beyond; physics: nature, presence.

For the first time in his practice, Lenoir has opted for a different color masking tape in some works, exchanging his trademark painter’s blue for yellow and orange. In the paintings overall, Lenoir’s treatment of paint—a rarely encountered combination of oil and acrylic (which feels like oil and water)—is more luminous and translucent than ever before.

Through his process, the aquatic, flora, and vegetation depicted in the works assume a spiritual dimension (aura) by conjuring, like nature, elements in their own essence. In Lenoir’s words, seemingly plucked from Wassily Kandinsky’s seminal text Concerning the Spiritual in Art, “The painting has so much potential to be, just to be…”