Dia Art Foundation presents an exhibition of works by the French artist François Morellet. A prolific painter, sculptor, and installation artist, Morellet was one of the founding members of the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel, an artist’s collaborative that emerged in France in the early 1960s. While Morellet’s systematic art was widely exhibited in Europe, his oeuvre has rarely been shown or studied in the United States.
Presented at Dia’s exhibition spaces in New York City and Beacon, François Morellet offers a focused exploration of the artist’s wide-ranging practice. The Dia:Chelsea installation includes a large selection of early abstract geometric paintings, key examples from Morellet’s later series and neon works, and his first intégration architecturale, titled Trames 3°-87°-93°-183° (1971/2017). Meanwhile, Dia:Beacon’s lower-level gallery features a new site-specific installation titled No End Neon (1990/2017), which was configured for Dia’s upstate venue in close collaboration with the Morellet estate and studio. This expansive presentation allows visitors to encounter Morellet’s practice alongside major installations of work by his American and European peers represented in Dia’s permanent collection. Organized by adjunct curator Béatrice Gross with curator Megan Holly Witko, this survey constitutes the first in-depth examination of the artist’s work to be mounted in the United States in more than thirty years.