Antoine Schmitt

With “Haute tension”, Antoine Schmitt reaches a new level in his exploration of autonomous systems and collective behaviour. The “War” series offers an algorithmic reinterpretation of war — not as an iconographic representation of violence, but as an abstract modelling of the dynamics of conflict, organisation and destruction.

Each generative painting stages two groups of brightly coloured warrior pixels, acting autonomously according to rules inspired by military tactics — formations, advances, retreats, encirclements, flanking manoeuvres. The unsettling beauty of these compositions lies in their fundamental paradox: their formal elegance and carefully considered palette contrast with the violence of the clashes they depict. The work runs in real time, with no possible repetition. Each battle is unique, each dynamic generates new configurations. The viewer witnesses an endless spectacle in which two antagonistic forces wear each other down in perpetual renewal. Antoine Schmitt thereby reveals something essential about the human condition: our propensity to turn the chaos of conflict into regulated systems, almost aesthetic in their terrible regularity.

On the occasion of this solo exhibition at Galerie Charlot, Antoine Schmitt presents his new series “War”, made up of various generative paintings that explore the structures, movements and combat tactics of ancient and contemporary wars. Through an elegant, minimal and abstract aesthetic, Antoine Schmitt stages two groups of brightly coloured warrior pixels, acting in real time and autonomously. Each painting explores their antagonistic relationship, the source of a violent tension in perpetual renewal. Faced with this endless carnage, we may find ourselves questioning the essential distinction between war and conflict. Antoine Schmitt brings to light a mechanism intrinsic to human nature, one that can be both vital and destructive. Antoine Schmitt’s works have previously explored the fragility of the balance between elements in peaceful tension. The fluid movement of “Swarm”, the unpredictable trajectory of “Pixel blanc” or the methodical displacement of “Ranger - Déranger” all foreground the dynamics of opposing forces. Heir to kinetic art and cybernetic art, Antoine Schmitt tirelessly questions the dynamic interactions between human nature and the nature of reality.

War is the delicate situation par excellence in which humankind has been immersed since the dawn of time. Humans are the only animal species (along with ants) to wage war. It is in our genes. Our ancestors were warriors, and we are their descendants. We are the products of immemorial massacres. Contemporary forms of war are no less bloody and no less harsh than ancestral wars; they simply take more varied forms.

The War series sets up infinite generative paintings of war situations. These are real wars between inexhaustible armies of pixels programmed to fight and kill one another. They are carnages (of pixels), abstract battle frescoes of great violence, with cathartic power.