Topologie discrète | Discrete Topology: Georges Koskas & Farah Khelil

lilia ben salah gallery is pleased to present Discrete Topology, a duo exhibition featuring the artists Georges Koskas (1922-2013) and Farah Khelil (1980).

This exhibition marks the first act of a silent dialogue between the two artists, both originally from Tunis. Although they never met, their works seem to converge on several levels, revealing affinities in their approaches to space and composition, as well as in their shared relationship with music and painting.

 

Arriving in Paris in 1946, Koskas trained in the studios of André Lhote and Fernand Léger before distancing himself to develop a sensitive and intuitive painting practice. His work is characterized by a pared-down aesthetic rooted in repetition and dissemination. In the 1950s, he gained recognition for his dot paintings, which positioned him as one of the most original figures in geometric abstraction, before taking a figurative turn that was misunderstood by his contemporaries. The works by Koskas featured in this exhibition belong to this pivotal period, which has been remembered almost exclusively by official art history.

Khelil, trained at the Tunis School of Fine Arts in the mid-2000s, first encountered this same history through books and other tools of mediation and learning. A few years later, she experienced it tangibly in Parisian museums. Since then, Khelil has continually questioned and redefined her relationship to images and Western art, developing her own language through the dispersion and layering of materials and documents, as well as the obliteration of existing figurative paintings, retaining only minute details to open up pictorial space.

 

In mathematics, "discrete topology" refers to a structure of a topological space where points are isolated from one another, forming a discontinuous sequence. Here, it evokes the surfaces of canvas, paper, or wood, as well as the exhibition space where the works of Khelil and Koskas unfold and respond to each other. Minimal and refined, these works punctuate the topological space of the exhibition, revealing infinitely vast expanses that remain to be explored.