Florian Pumh枚sl’s (b.1971) minimalist triptychs first debuted in London last year and are available to explore once more at until 11 January. Made up of a series of three plaster panels progressing in size, these works create an abstract visual language sequence, stamped with an implement called a clich茅: an onomatopoeic French word that describes the “clich茅” sound a metal press makes each time it strikes the printing process.
The unique trios appear identical with formal patterns dancing across each canvas in spite of the varying sizes, as if each design had been carefully re-scaled and reproduced three times. Zig-zags and swirls, geometric angles and intricate lines map themselves across the space in sequences and stages as Pumh枚sl grapples with medium of mass reproduction and transforming images and objects into elegant and sparse arrangements.
Pre-Columbian textile patterns and a fascination with three-dimensional architectural space also comes to the fore as Pumh枚sl stamps old Georgian script onto plaster, effectively reproducing obsolete letters from an alphabet unreadable to all but scholars of Aramaic or ancient Greek. Always keen to process the tropes of art, architecture and the graphics of the modernist avant-garde into new aesthetic systems, this latest exhibition puts forward a canon of abstract visual language to address the legacy of modernism that has so impacted on his work.
Florian Pumh枚sl, until 11 January 2014, , 52-54 Bell Street, London.
Credits
1. Clich茅 7, 2012, Florian Pumh枚sl, courtesy of Lisson Gallery.
