Bernard Piffaretti
Untitled
Bernard Piffaretti’s work is based on a system of duplication on a single canvas. The painter starts painting indifferently on the left or right side of the canvas, and reproduces the result from memory on the other side, separating both sides by a central vertical line. An image is produced – which is neither the model nor the copy. It is impossible to perceive which one of the two patterns was the first one. They are both similar like approximate clones. There is no first time. The story stutters as of the beginning. Without any stylistic unit, Piffaretti’s paintings are very different from one another. The protocol suspends time. The opposition copy/original disappears.
Bernard Piffaretti was born in 1955 in Saint-Etienne. He graduated from the school of Fine Arts of Saint-Etienne, and he now lives and works in Paris while expanding his carrier internationally.
Like On Kawara, Stanley Brouwn or Roman Opalka, Bernard Piffaretti is also a “protocol artist”. He has imposed a few restrictions on his work, resulting in a protocol set as of 1986, which the artist has followed from then on. It is called the “Piffaretti System.”