Georges Tony Stoll

Identification Absurde N17, 2009
Canvas
48 x 54 cm
unique
Courtesy Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

Georges Tony Stoll considers his practice as a journey into what he calls "the territory of abstraction," "underground archives" or "the hole". From painting to photography, the same shapes are animated; circles, cones, triangles, oblong shapes with colors sometimes marked, sometimes pale, placed on canvas or paper, are the same as the shapes captured by his photographic eye: Round clouds above the mountain, the two jackets hanging above the door, the black hand resting on the white cloth are all abstractions, and the fugues interspersed repeated these forms arising out of the history of painting come together as photographs woven like a canvas. Stoll's exploration of this "territory" and the experience of the gap between the real and the fabricated is matched by a subterranean structuring of an oeuvre dominated by collage and the association of shapes, things and beings all given equal status, as in the recent gilded wood constructions.

Taken together, this range of media and this structure serving as the exhibition's
central axis tend to demonstrate that the media in question are indissociable, even
while retaining their individual autonomy. The paintings, photographs, constructions,
videos and texts do not amalgamate like complementary entities, but rather give rise
to the interweaving connections of an art work truly singular on today's art scene. An
oeuvre referencing not only Modern Art ? we note the impressive echoes of Hans Arp in the works on paper and canvas, and of Surrealist photography ? but also some of the founding works of Contemporary Art as well: Joseph Beuys, in its transfiguration of the world and, even more so, of human relationships; and Blinky Palermo, in its choice of materials and its reinvention of an abstract language with its roots in the real world.

Text by Jean Marc Avrilla, from the press release of the exhibition at LA GALERIE, Contemporary Art Center, noisy-le-Sec (December 3, 2011 - February 11, 2012)