This post features seven accordion works by this Belgian artist who was born in 1939 and currently lives & works in Brussels. Trained as a painter at the L'Ecole national superieure des arts visuels de La Cambre (Le Cambre) he developed a painting practice that took the medium itself as the subject of his paintings, and he subsequently started examining the relationship between painting and its support structure, as well as color. Indeed, color would become the central feature in his painterly research, and in due course extended to his sculptural and bookmaking activities.
In 1976 he turned his attention to publishing his own works via three successive publishing houses, Le Remorqueur (The Tugboat): 1976-2003, Le Nouveaux Remorqueur: 2002-2015, and Le Dernier Remorqueur: 2016 onwards. With the exception of Leporello, published by Bruno Robbe Editions,1990, all the other works featured here were published under Villers' own imprint.
When asked about the relationship between his artists' books and his paintings he replied that they were "...a way of painting, an extension of my painting." And when he introduced a fold into his monochrome works he realized that the "...fold gives the monochrome different aspects...", and further that "You fold a sheet of paper, the idea of a book is born, that's where it starts," concluding, "So the fold is very important to me."
As can be seen in the works accompanying this post, the 'fold' is essential to his experimentation with his books and paper works, and it's evident that his previous mode of pictorial research into the support structure of paintings has now been applied to the more than 150 folded books, accordions and assorted paper works he's published.
For further information about Villers I recommend the catalogue raisonne titled Bernard Villers: Les Editions du Nouveaux, Editions Sens, Rennes, 2016, in which can be found the following works featured here. Additionally there is an illuminating documentary (25 mins) created by Lionel Dutrieux in 2016 and available on youtube at: Bernard Villers, peintre et éditeur - YouTube and his website; Research - Bernard Villers
VA (Go), 2006, unlimited edition
4 double-sided pages, individually 8.25" x 2.75" and fully opened 11"
à suivre (to be continued), 2012, unlimited edition
6 double-sided pages, individually 5.75" x 2.5" and when fully open 1ft 3"
A completely abstract accordion that is bound in its center to its covers, so that both sides open out into the one work. The dots are 'ellipses', and are used to indicate that something has been left out, and coupled with the title of this work suggests something is to be continued also.
