Each member of BMPT (Buren, Mosset, Parmentier, Toroni – formed in
1966) chose an individual form or mark with which to contest issues of
authorship, originality, commercialism, aesthetic consumerism or institutional relations. Buren’s signature mark was the stripe, for Olivier
Mosset it was the circle, for Michel Parmentier the striped monochrome.
Niele Toroni’s strategy was to make “imprints of a No 50 paintbrush
repeated in regular intervals of 30cm”, a single motif he has continued to
employ since 1967.
A form of reduced painting, this spare practice engages a series of
apparent contradictions. The touch of the brush is at once generic and
particular. No two brushstrokes can ever be identical yet their repetition
diverts attention from individual mark making. The participation of the artist
is necessary but his role is emptied of subjective content.
Like that of Sol LeWitt, much of the liveliness of Toroni’s work
comes from the intersection of an idea and a place, but while LeWitt was a
fertile producer of ideas for art Toroni has confined himself to one. He has rightly
understood that if the place and the occasion changes then the idea can remain
the same. If the motif is the same each time, then attention is brought to bear
on the institutional or architectural frame.
