André Stempfel—The Merchant House, Your House André Stempfel

A distinguished French artist, an undisputed authority on the monochrome, a hands-on inventor, André Stempfel (1930) has undoubtedly given us new proof of the monochrome’s longevity and artistic force. The Merchant House (TMH) is honored to present a special exhibition of his medium-dening and -defying body of work. Stempfel’s timeless geometries in radiant yellow—his “yellow monochromes”—enter a lived-in environment, but only to decontextualize. Ludic, acrobatic, spectacular, they unsettle common viewpoints. 
 

Now ninet-yfive, Stempfel remains at the height of his pursuit, true to his self-described, open-ended program of “destruction-metamorphosis”: “iconoclastic (and euphoric),” intent on “raising havoc” in a “space of introspection.” Stempfel’s work insists on contingency and participation. TMH, in response, transforms its very appearance for this exhibition. Sofas, chairs, cabinets, and lamps are brought in, inviting everyone to linger, lounge, and mingle in the company of the artworks. Miroir morceau choisi (1984), le président (1986), ligne hors texte (1989), retourné (1998), sooth (2006), rou-lé (2017), où?, quoi? (2020), and vloop (2023) are highlighted among other emblematic hybrid pieces.
 

In the light cast by the yellow geometric gures, set loose to roam in frivolity, geometry reasserts its uid, dening power: reframing, or even reclaiming, ordinary objects in terms of the objects of geometry—lines, shapes, and their rhythms. And what of the functionality, the instrumentality, of furnishings? 
 

A strictly logical view of the world is thrown into question, and with it, the models that govern our orientation in it. Stempfel’s objects, taking center stage, draw us in with communal humor, with a joy that sustains art—and sustains us with art. 
 

This exhibition draws on Founding Artistic Director Marsha Plotnitsky’s essay on André Stempfel in the TMH catalogue Consequences III, extending the gallery’s dialogue with Stempfel’s work.