Galerie Ceysson & Bénétière opensits eighth space in Tokyo
- Gen de Art
- May 17
- 4 min read
Inaugural exhibition: Supports/Surfaces
May 17 - August 29, 2025
After Saint-Étienne, Paris, Lyon, Luxembourg, New York, Geneva and the Domaine de Panéry near Uzès, Galerie Ceysson & Bénétière opens its eighth space in Tokyo, the gallery's first in Asia. For its inauguration, this new 325m2 venue, located in the Ginza district, will present until August 29, 2025 an exhibition devoted to the Supports/Surfaces movement. This movement emerged in the late 1960s in opposition to aesthetic norms, favoring ethical creation and the exploration of unconventional materials. The exhibition looks back at this movement, which has always sought to avoid smooth fabrications.
Located on the 8e floor of the Cura Tower, in the prestigious Ginza district, this 325 m2 venue, set in a contemporary tower, has been reinterpreted in its interior architecture with natural, raw materials by interior designer Sophie Dries.
In contrast to the traditional white cube, Sophie Dries has imagined a singular space, combining the essential functionality of a place dedicated to art and the meticulousness of Japanese craftsmanship, in a minimalist wabi-sabi spirit. Inscribed in a reflection on materiality and light, its design dialogues with the ideas developed in Junichiro Tanizaki’s L’Éloge de l’ombre. The entire floor is paved with warm-toned end-grain iroko wood. On arrival, visitors are invited to enter the gallery space through a monumental arch in corten steel, contrasting with the solid wood and metal furniture.
In the private salon for collectors, bespoke furniture was made in France from pieces in the permanent collection, including the Croissant sofa, with its wrap-around shape combining elegance and comfort, and a nod to the French viennoiserie appreciated by the Japanese. The Songye tables, in solid oak and corten steel, are also available for the first time as reception counters. A Meteor rug adds a further organic touch with its aesthetic inspired by nature, moss and minerals. Glow Chandeliers in papier-mâché diffuse a warm glow, complementing the lighting in the reception areas. Raw linen knit fabrics from the Issé x Sophie Dries collection for Casamance dress the glass façades overlooking the city. Black stoneware ceramics, restored using the traditional kintsugi technique, and an olfactory column created for Maison d’Orsay in a special Japanese edition (lacquer and burnt wood), subtly complete the layout of the space.
As soon as you arrive via the two elevators, you’re invited into the immersive plywood- clad bookstore, created by a Japanese craftsman. The oval-shaped bookstore is like a box, showcasing books and works on paper.
Handcrafting and the use of traditional natural materials are central to Sophie Dries’ work. Regularly collaborating with master craftsmen (glassmakers, ceramists, cabinetmakers...), she creates unique pieces in which know-how and innovation are in harmonious dialogue. For the Ceysson & Bénétière gallery in Tokyo, this approach echoes Japanese craftsmanship, renowned for its exacting standards and precision. The use of natural materials (such as wood, metal, glass and paper), clean lines and respect for the artisan’s gesture are all values shared between his world and that of Japanese craftsmen. Inspired by Roland Barthes’ vision in L’Empire des signes, Sophie Dries explores gesture and detail, where attention to the minute and the unspoken reveals an aesthetic essential to the Japanese experience of beauty.This dialogue between heritage and innovation is expressed in every element designed for the gallery, transformed into a setting conducive to the discovery and appreciation of contemporary art.
Inaugural exhibitionSupports/Surfaces
May 17 - August 29, 2025
The label Supports/Surfaces was not spirited into existence by a critic, historian or dealer. The cohesive element uniting these artists was the theoretical debate and engagement in unconventional exhibition strategies that they practiced together.
Most of the artists whose names will be forever associated with Supports/Surfaces were born in the south of France, not far from the Mediterranean sea. These include André- Pierre Arnal, Vincent Bioules, Louis Cane, Daniel Dezeuze, Noel Dolla, Toni Grand, Bernard Pagès, Patrick Saytour and Claude Viallat. Only Marc Devade, André Valensi and Jean-Pierre Pincemin were born in Paris.
The term “Support-Surface” (without the plural “s”) was coined by Bioulès and first used in September 1970, for the eponymoud exhibition curated by Pierre Gaudibert in the Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris department called ARC (Animation Recherche Confrontation). Included were Bioulès, Devade, Dezeuze, Saytour, Valensi, Viallat and Pagès-- who retracted his participation before the opening.
The philosophical underpinnings of Supports/Surfaces drew equally from political philosophy, psychoanalysis and revolutionary socialism. They also shared a collective ambition to contest the domination of the international art scene by Americans. These strategies invested their work with conceptual rigor even as the plastic results challenged esthetic norms. They explored unconventional materials, focussed their praxis on process, and invented new modes of exhibition in alternative spaces, out of doors, and in self-published editions.
In 1971, Bioulès, Cane, Devade and Dezeuze founded the magazine called Peinture- Cahiers théoriques. It closed in 1985, but remains a testimonial to the intellectual agitation of the times. It contained a heady mixture of radical political ideas and hardline modernist esthetics. Typically, the April 1974 contained both a translation of Greenberg’s 1961 essay “Modernist Painting”, and an enthusiastic review Sollers’ book Sur le matérialisme by Louis Cane.
As they matured, associates of Supports/Surfaces became the most successful artists in France. But they also became more individualistic and solitary. However, the rebellious spirit expressed under the banner of Supports/Surfaces continues to inspire their present works, which are ultimately far more subtle than the early debates which motivated them.
By now, the artists of Supports/Surfaces have, each in his own way, revealed some possible solutions to modernism running out of steam. They continue to question the notion of painting, pursuing a radically ethic esthetic. Louis Cane used the phrase “I don’t see the necessity” as an effective critique throughout his career. Saytour made a necessity out of his respect of recycled materials and forms, just as Viallat’s motif is the message. For all of them, it remains essential to eschew affectation, to work with the reality of materials, to be wary of slick fabrication. Perhaps what distinguishes them from other avant-gardes is they have been proving for decades that it is possible to produce a renaissance without saying that art is dead.
- Rachel Stella
