At Perrotin Paris, Bernard Frize Pushes Against His Own Self-Imposed Constraints

With his geometric latticework paintings, French-born, Berlin-based Bernard Frize makes order out of chaos. At his 21st exhibition within the Perrotin network (and his 10th in Paris)—”Les 26,” on view through May 30—the artist focuses his attention on this keystone trademark of his practice: interlocking grids that use defined brushstrokes, all of the same width, to construct a hazy chromatic architecture. 

Here, bands of bright color stream across the canvas in measured sequences. The hues, layered one atop the other while still wet, then locked in using resin, overlap and resist canvas constraints. The result is full of optical tension, both controlled and unexpected. What initially reads as repetition reveals itself, upon closer inspection, as variation: shifts in viscosity, pressure, and timing accumulate on the painting’s surface.

Elsewhere, Frize’s tempera paintings on glass have more strict regulations: Each color moves in three straight lines to create exactly two right angles before switching to the next layer. The interplay is both rigid and a little smeared, evoking something rational but unconscious, like a haphazard subway map or complex circuitry.

In his quest to decenter his own subjectivity, Frize affixes titles to these new works with a utilitarian sort of mis-sense, as he has in shows past. Since the late 1970s, he’s visualized works that are nonrepresentational and bursting with saturation, pushing the limits of his own self-imposed constraints. Repetition may be at the heart of his practice, but the results are never dull. He taxonomizes some paintings with simple syllables—Vido, Sioc, and Vesem—while others bear the dates of their creation. Just as no specific color or shape dominates his canvas, Frize ensures that no prevailing emotional or linguistic suggestion shapes the viewer’s perception. At Perrotin Paris, there is only the canvas.

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