Permanent installation in the library of Museum Haus Konstruktiv

François Morellet (born 1926 in Cholet, France, where he died in 2016) discovered Concrete Art in 1951 through Max Bill and other artists and went on to become one of its most unorthodox representatives. His work, which comprises painting, drawing, prints, objects, sculpture, installation, and interventions, is a blend of a concise methodology with a free spirit that rejects all conventions.

While he began his artistic career creating works with repetitive structures of stripes, his artistic development since 1958 has been defined by periodically changing agendas, which Morellet calls “règles du jeu,” or rules of the game. These allow him to investigate predictability and unpredictability, order and chaos, while distancing himself from what he regards as the antiquated role of the artist-genius. He first consistently applied these rules in his “trames” [wefts], which he began creating in 1958 and consist of several sets of parallel lines at angles to each other, often resulting in busy grid structures. “Untitled (Grillage)” from 1965, the portfolio project “Trames” from 1966, and the “3 simples trames 0° – 30° – 90°“ from 1966 are examples of this. Since 1960, he has also consistently followed the concept of “programmed chance,” which is always based on a predefined system of order (the picture format and the number, color, and form of elements). This order is then “filled” with a structure generated by chance.