François Morellet has been concentrating since 1952 on pictures, the order of which is based completely on his free, artistic decision. He has developed open systems, or “rules of the game”, with which identical elements are linked together to form structures. One of Morellet’s key themes, inspired by Piet Mondrian and the tiled floors of the Alhambra, are grid lines. Due to irritating visual effects these can, although in fact static, give the impression of movement and instability. The aim was to use a simple system to create complexity; dense pictures that would include a wide range of configurations. With his Fin de série No. 1, Grillage Frenchman Morellet recapitulates his early system of identifying motifs for his pictures in a very concise form. As Morellet said in 1988, his aim in his work is to achieve “less than nothing”.
