The Library

Clédia Fourniau conceived the painting The Library for the former library of the Church of Trinità dei Monti in Rome, as part of the exhibition Hypothèse de lecture. She sought to approach the landscape both as a subject and as an object of study, treating it as an archetypal motif, “in a style […] reminiscent of the crude scribbling of children filling in a colouring book.”¹ In this painting, she manipulated images as signs and symbols, while recreating the effects of atmospheric perspective and allowing for shifts between different registers. Forms resembling mountains, an aeroplane, the phi symbol, and other elements can be discerned. Together, they reveal a composition that is only seemingly spontaneous, verging on the naïve while openly acknowledging its own conditions and mechanisms. By responding directly to the exhibition context and its historical and geographical implications, she sought to short-circuit, or at least question, notions of authority, sacredness and progress, while also reflecting on ideas of representation, gesture, process, the double and the real. ¹ Catherine Millet, “Années 1980, la peinture au ras des pâquerettes,” Art Press, no. 36, April 1980.