Michel Mouffe, [Into the Veil]

Upon entering the exhibition, visitors encounter Marià Serra Riera. His portrait becomes apparent upon close inspection, when viewers allow themselves to have a slow and steady gaze. Over time, the face becomes visible, seemingly rising from the depths of the canvas. Hidden behind multiple layers of acrylic paint, the painting is part of a series of portraits titled, A las cinco de la tarde. In the series, Michel Mouffe delves into the history of people executed by the Franco regime on the Spanish island of Formentera. The portraits are inspired by the scarce photographic remnants of those who resisted the fascist regime. The faces remain, however, enigmatically concealed behind the canvas, their presence suggested through faint contours. As a result, Mouffe balances figuration and abstraction: by obscuring the faces, he evokes a subtle glimpse of their past and legacy.

This series is linked to the artist’s personal life and his relationship to the island of Formentera, where he resides and maintains a studio. Still, the history of the veiled faces touches upon something universal. The story of those assassinated while fighting fascism is even more relevant in times when notions of democracy and freedom are challenged daily. This face of the resistance forms a starting point, which will be confronted again when leaving the space.

Within Escher Gallery’s main installation space, an almost sacral symmetry seems to be respected. Four large Into the Veil paintings surround visitors, with “God’s Gravity” floating in between, a sculpture as a looming black mass, seemingly pulled down by its weight, carrying the world's burden. The Into the Veil series, which lends its name to this exhibition, harbours a secret. As the title suggests, they cover something similarly to A las cincos de la tarde. Here, however, deeply hidden under multiple layers of paint, there are self-portraits, a modern iteration of a Renaissance tradition. In some, the human forms are practically impossible to perceive, their presence only echoing through subtle shimmers of apparent shapes. The protruding elements within the canvas form the relief where the artist’s face is hidden. The play of appearance and disappearance, presence and absence, and silence or clamour are elements that have always lived within Mouffe’s oeuvre. The life-like scale of the human form evokes a connection to the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci: the square paintings with human figures, presented under the empty circles of the Escher Gallery, man and building combined in an ideal convergence of proportions.

A modern master who relentlessly researched the relationship between humans and architecture, Le Corbusier, is closely linked to the inception of these works. The Into the Veil works were made for and presented at a solo exhibition at the Convent of La Tourette. Built in 1959 and close to Lyon, it was the last building designed by Le Corbusier. An interesting connection can be made to the start of Mouffe’s artistic practice: at the beginning of the 1980s—just after finishing his studies—he was able to put up his artist studio at the Guiette house in Antwerp, built by Le Corbusier in 1926. From Guiette to La Tourette, one of Le Corbusier’s earliest buildings to one of his latest, this exhibition also marked a full circle moment in Mouffe’s career. Via this lens, the architect’s evolution may be paralleled with the artist’s evolution: a growing sensibility to colour, balance, and proportion.

According to Friar Marc Chauveau, curator of the exhibition at the Convent of La Tourette, Mouffe’s work invites us to be won over by the silence of each work, to contemplate the vibrations of colours, to enter a chromatic, even meditative, promenade and finally to be touched by the profound poetry that emanates from these coloured "landscapes".[1]

Ascending the stairs within Escher Gallery, the presence of “God’s Gravity” confronts viewers from a different angle. Upstairs, two works from the In Between series are installed. Here, viewers may sense the architectural tension that, while already apparent in the space, resides within the boundaries of the canvas itself. These works are defined by the presence of two protuberances, highlighting the force that exists in the emptiness between them. Another architectural presence is “Corolle”. Its roundness seems to mirror the rigid, empty circles of the Escher Gallery, but closer inspection reveals its playful deformity: the borders of the work twist and turn, like the petals of a flower moving to bloom. In nature, the corolla is the envelope of the flower, which defines its aesthetic while protecting the inside. In Mouffe’s work, the inside seems infinite, an absorbing sea of red colour that attracts and disenchants at the same time, offering the looming risk of being enthralled. Just like the works on the ground floor, “Corolle” acts as a veil, hiding something impossible to define.

The exhibition’s endpoint is outlined by a small yet ominous canvas. This singular painting from the Black series, without a doubt Mouffe’s darkest work, doesn’t just evoke an infinity, it gapes like a formidable void. It is the ultimate challenge of defying abstraction. Like Malevich’s Black Square, this small canvas wants to liberate viewers from the constraints of the material world and bring them to a place where endless possibilities can emerge. The canvas softly emerges, reaching out as an invitation. Dark does not mean hopeless, on the contrary. This work should be perceived as an end to one reality, a tunnel to the light in which dreams can blossom.

[1] Michel Mouffe chez Le Corbusier, Bernard Chauveau Édition, Paris, 2024, p. 15.