WORKS

1932-1999, Geneva

Born into a modest family, a mechanic by training, Jean Baier approached painting as a self-taught artist. Painting landscapes and passionate about cinema, he attended a lecture by Fernand Léger at 19 years-old, which decided his vocation for abstract art.

He became close to art writer Michel Seuphor, architecture historian Sigfried Giedion and artists Max Bill and Victor Vasarely. Numerous exhibitions and achievements visible in the public space will enrich his career and his work.

Close to the concrete art of Zurich, the work of Jean Baier is in line with the aesthetic principles of Max Bill and neoplasticism to which it will add a kinetic dimension, which makes his work unique in Swiss concrete art.

Having developed a language of pure architectural forms and a chromatic range limited to fundamental colors, this radical simplification generates an increasing complexity in which hides a complex search for balance and harmony.

This kinetic preoccupation is a constant throughout his work. Forms slide, flee or approach, combine, bend or deviate, each movement changes the relationship and perception of the work and creates new tensions.

This rigorous plastic does not close on itself and very soon leaves the plane to conquer the third dimension; paradoxically, this path is helped by screen printing, through which Jean Baier explores the effects of depth before going into relief in space, both in sculpture and in bas-reliefs.

From his beginnings, Baier went out of the usual formats to adopt either the stretched square or the square on point; anxious to go beyond painting on canvas or panel, he abandoned traditional materials and painted with a pistol on aluminum sheets. These industrial processes ensure the sustainability of the work and also respond to the concern to confront architecture and public spaces.

These various lateral experiences enrich the basic research and continue to deepen without losing its rigor, technical perfection is at the service of a formal perfection whatever the dimensions of the work.