Au-Delà Du Signe (1957-1964)

The exhibition "Au-delà du signe (1957-1964)" at Mennour, Paris, focuses on Jean Degottex's exploration of the sign as a visual motif rather than a carrier of meaning. Moving away from abstract expressionism, Degottex's work from this period emphasizes the painting as a space for experiencing line, rhythm, and void. This approach aligns with artists like Georges Mathieu, Henri Michaux, and Cy Twombly who engaged with abstraction and writing, yet Degottex adopted a more minimalist and ascetic style.

The works from 1957-1964, often titled to evoke line, breath, or fragment, show Degottex's interest in East Asian scripts, not for imitation but for structural inspiration. He integrated concepts of active emptiness, the interplay of strokes, and the temporality of the drawn line. His signs, traced with diluted ink or oil and sometimes scratched into the surface, appear to verge on erasure, making the background a space of resonance. This minimalist inscription engages with themes of language crisis, emptiness, and silence, where the sign becomes vibration, rhythm, and breath, reflecting a meditative experience of time.