Not Necessarily Words
Exhibition at Martin van Zomeren, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2011

Jean-Baptiste Maitre
‘Not Necessarily Words’
19 February - 2 April, 2011

Martin van Zomeren is pleased to present ‘Not Necessarily Words’, Jean-Baptist Maitre’s
(B. 1978, France) first solo presentation at the gallery.

The exhibition consists of three different strategies of presentation which compete with
the mediation of art.
Written means of communication such as articles, catalogues, images and films which are
mediating art forms are the artist’s working material. In ‘Shaped Cinema’, several pages
taken from a 1972 MOMA (1) catalogue of Frank Stella’s Shaped Canvases and its criti-
cal text by William Rubin are reprinted onto 35 mm Kodak film strips. The motion film
thereby produces flickering images of the fragmented catalogue, resulting in the decon-
struction of the discourse on Stella’s work.

The installation ‘Plywood As Media’ presents us with a copy of a plank using plaster and
silkscreen prints that reproduces the pattern of plywood. Through depicting the concept
of ‘nature morte’ (‘still life’ in French literally translated to ‘dead nature’) Maitre gives
back a representational form to a shape quoted from minimalist vocabulary which focus-
es on the literal object instead.

In a similarly deceptive method, the artist presents a written statement ‘Not Necessar-
ily Words’, depicting what may seem at first sight the widely used contemporary form
of neon signs. Instead, one notices that it is created with a different medium - fragile
ceramics.

Jean-Baptiste Maitre received his art history diploma from Paris-4 Sorbonne University as
well as Fine Arts and studio photography at both Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-
Arts and Gobelins-l’école de l’image. (2004)
He worked as a Fine Art researcher at the Jan Van Eyck Akademy, Maastricht during
2007 - 2008 . In 2010 Maitre completed his residency program at the Rijksakademie van
Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam.

Recent exhibition include ‘Play Biennial’, Guggenheim Museum, New York, ‘10 ausgewählte
Positionen’ Kunstraum Dusseldorf (2010) and ‘Chanting Baldessari’, Bonnefantenmu-
seum, Maastricht among others. ‘Not Necessarily Words’ is his first exhibition show in
Amsterdam.

For further information please contact Ayelet Yanai at contact@gmvz.com