Au Hasard

This exhibition at Mennour, Paris, explores the intersection of geometric abstraction and chance through the works of François Morellet and Sophie Taeuber-Arp. The show highlights a shared artistic inquiry into introducing indeterminacy within ordered systems. Taeuber-Arp's early 20th-century compositions, while geometric, incorporated variations and unstable balances, giving her work an organic dimension where the grid served as a playground for spontaneity.

François Morellet, influenced by Taeuber-Arp, developed his own methods for disrupting perfect logic by employing random processes. His use of chance elements or arbitrary rules in the organization of his lines and grids generated unpredictable outcomes, moving geometric abstraction from a model of absolute order to a field of experimentation where rules and hazards coexist. Both artists utilized chance as a strategy to subvert conventions and demonstrate abstraction's capacity for welcoming the unexpected.