Lecture/Peinture 1971

Niele Toroni made this artwork, Lecture/Peinture, as part of his life-long investigation into the most basic elements of painting. Toroni, who was Swiss but based in Paris, sought to distill painting to its essence, by making art that anyone could reproduce. His work invites us to ask, what exactly makes a painting a painting? Is it the skill of the artist? Or the ideas conveyed? The regular pattern of identical brushstrokes on the background canvas, and the presence of additional blank canvases, seem to demystify the process. By making the artistic method so transparent, Toroni was challenging the art market of his time, which celebrated the uniqueness and the genius of the artist. To understand Toroni's work better, we can read his writings, and look at the output of the Groupe BMPT, with whom he exhibited. These materials allow us to see how artists used the simplest means to comment on the social structures of the art world.