He is used to major museums, New York, Venice and Japan. He is perfectly trained in prestigious openings. But, this June morning, the painter Claude Viallat is sitting in the garden of the presbytery of Aubais, a small town in the Gard. There are about twenty people there, and he knows at least half of them. Alongside his wife, Henriette, he has moist eyes and prefers to let his daughter, Claire, speak. Before, finally, letting go: “The pressure is multiple, but it’s like I’m realizing a dream. »
At the dawn of his 86th birthday, Claude Viallat exhibits in duo until August 21 with his friend Patrick Saytour, in his native village, 2,600 inhabitants, located between Nîmes and Montpellier. Viallat could have played the stars and refused the proposal of the new municipality. But that’s not the type of the character. Viallat-Saytour in Aubais, “this is probably our last game of ping-pong”, confesses the painter. With a small smile, his wife adds: “He spent months thinking about the clash. » In his wake, Patrick Saytour, just as modest, took to the game with the same sincerity. It’s not nothing to reveal yourself in your home port.
Aubais, for the two men, is a starting point. Viallat was born there, Saytour came to settle there (and still lives there). Here, in the 1960s, with southern friends, they welded their friendship and nourished their artistic reflections, giving birth to the Supports/Surfaces movement. They are part of this handful of artists (with Vincent Bioulès, Daniel Dezeuze…) eager to shake up the codes. They wanted to appropriate public space (village squares, benches, beaches…), avoid museums, galleries and do without the inevitable wooden frame. “It was a time of an abundance of ideas and incredible possibilities! », recalls Viallat, who became the figurehead of this provincial momentum. At his side, Saytour listens then validates.
“I owe a lot to this village”
At that time, agitators met regularly in Aubais, at Claude and Henriette Viallat’s. It is here, in their house with a tiled roof, that they baptize, on an idea of the Montpellier resident Vincent Bioulès, their Supports/Surfaces movement. With for poster the facsimile of a notice of judicial sale found in the notarial office of Viallat father! The first major exhibition was presented in Paris, at the Museum of Modern Art, in 1970.
“Without Aubais, I am almost certain that Supports/Surfaces would not exist, confides Claude Viallat. I owe a lot of my work to this village,” continues the one who drew inspiration for his famous stencil there. This form – some would say a bean shape – which returns to his works was born from the gesture of a mason coating the walls of a kitchen with lime with a stamp…
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