Francois Morellet The Case for Programmed Experimental Painting From the beginning of the 19508, Francois Morellet fo: cused on “systems” for his paintings, rules established prior to the actual act of painting, which determine its ex- ecution. In this way the artist can reduce the number of subjective decisions, and the viewer can grasp the princi ple of the work. Since 1956, the tiles of his works system- atically describe the program to be executed. From April 4 to 18, 1962, the Paris-based Groupe de Re- cherche d'Art Visuel (GRAV), co-founded by Morellet in summer 1960, exhibited their works at the Maison des Beaux-Arts in Paris under the title LTnstabilité (Instability) [Originally published in Groupe de Recherche dArt Viswel Paris 1962, Galerie Denise René and GRAV (eds.), April 1962, n. ps translated from the French.) There are thousands of masterpieces in museums. There are thousands of gifted painters who successfully adapt to the taste of the day and gain a huge audience. School follows school, each one better at shocking, pleas- ing, and entertaining than the last. Ic would be crazy and hypocritical to get up in arms about such a thriving situation in the plastic arts, Bur one is, nonetheless, astonished by the more or less to- tal absence of any teuly experimental painting among these miles and miles of masterpieces and the many hundred: weight of studies thereof. For all these works, there is no way ‘we can talk in terms of real, controlled experiments. Their authors either identify themselves with them, re: garding them as an uncontrollable manifestation of theit per: sonality, or, following a more modern process, attach some primordial value to the discovery of a new procedure, and re peat one or two arbitrarily chosen variants of it, once author- ship has been clearly recognized. A real experiment should, on the other hand, be carried ‘out, based on controllable elements, whereby systematic pro: ‘gress would be made by following a program. The development of an experiment should run on its own, almost outside the control of the programmer. Letus take an example:ifyou superpose very simple forms (the right ones in terms of Gestalt theory) and if you vary the angles of superposition, a whole series of structures appears. These structures, which are thoroughly controlled and can easily be re-created, represent a choice material for aesthetic experiments ~ a material that is obviously much more appro- priate than some intuitive, unique work, or even than tests concocted by psychologists. Experimental programs in the same vein can also be ap- plied to color and movement, for example. To sum up, this programmed experimental painting seems to meet two needs: first, the need of the audience, which is keen to take part in the “ereation” of works, is keen to demystify art and wants to understand things a little better and, second, the great need for new materials for aestheticians, those scientists who are at once mathematicians and psychologists and who, starting out from the theories of modern psychology (in particular on the transmission of messages), are laying the foundations for anew science of art.Frangois Morell Frangois Moreller