Bernard Frize

liquid politics interview and photography by OLIVIER ZAHM All artworks courtesy of Atelier-Bernard Frize. Bernard Frize wears a wool suit jacket BRIONI Bernard Frize began a career as a painter in the mid-1970s, a time when conceptual art was flourishing, painting’s intellectual currency was in decline, especially in France, and postmodernism and photography-based art were emerging. As if to combine Marxist perspective with the calculating lens of conceptual art, Frize systematized a painting process using planned gestures, imbricated patterns, geometric motifs, an arbitrary palette of acrylic colors, and an overall visual design. There have been times when he engaged the help of others for complex compositions, but mostly, for the past four decades, he alone has pushed the envelope of abstraction and gesture in paintings that are at once visual, conceptual, and contemporary. OLIVIER ZAHM — When did you start painting? BERNARD FRIZE — I went to the École des Beaux-Arts in Aix-en-Provence and…