Messen de Clerq has put on a show of Catalonian conceptual artist Ignasi Aballi, whose works were the subject of Madrid’s Reina Sofía retrospective in 2015-16. On view in the exhibition, titled ‘Translations’, are a number of works on paper, some of which are reminiscent of Josef Albers’s colour studies: grids of different tones marked with phrases such as ‘Peacock Blue’ and ‘Raw Sienna’. Aballi’s ‘Translations of a Japanese dictionary of colour combinations (Part II)’ (2018) is an intriguing series in which colour and language are transposed – and transposed again. One highlight is the 90-minute video Repaint Miró (2016), in which we see a restorer cover a bronze sculpture by Joan Miró in white, then re-paint it in its original colours.
- Pablo Larios