In 1984, following a hiatus of several years, Max Wechsler permanently set aside his paintbrush and developed a technique uniquely his own: his "Papiers marouflés", marouflaged papers, have become his distinctive hallmark. Through the deconstruction of the paper letter, the artist has gradually built an ever-expanding cosmic alphabet.

“Erase the meaning of words”¹
The catalyst for this shift was observing "briquettes" of wet, compressed newspaper used for combustion. Shaped as bricks, the letters are no longer visible, and the neutral colour emerges from the material itself. Wechsler began experimenting with tearing and reassembling newspaper to dismantle the word, aiming to strip letters of their function and "erase the meaning from words" making this the core of his creative act: extracting the essence of a sign by disrupting the letters. The words no longer resemble the significations they contain.

“The utmost with the letter”
With a background in graphic design, Wechsler was drawn to the letter for its typographic qualities—its shape, slant, and density. This desire to engage differently with the twenty-six letters of the alphabet fostered a close relationship. He expressed a wish to "achieve the utmost with the letter", to "deconstruct it, transform it, retaining perhaps just a contour here, a stroke there, sometimes merely a curve". No single characteristic seems to stand out among the various alphabets subjected to his collages, except for the coherence of this deliberate process of stripping language of its meaning.

“One is the result of the other”
Originating from an initial "source" work of photocopied newspaper, today's creations are the offspring of those from the past, each one leading to the next. "Each completed surface serves as a springboard for what follows, and this sequence is like a lineage that draws nourishment from its origins". Engaged in a complex genealogical branching, Wechsler has surrounded himself with an extensive, multi-generational family. The painter's vision, described by Maurice Merleau-Ponty as a "continued birth"² is evident in his work as a series of renewed beginnings.

“Compose and recompose”
A significant part of the composition takes place during the passage of paper and transparencies through the photocopier—a kind of nomadic studio where illumination requires the artist to “act” externally. This is paired with two other phases of composition: the pre-copy phase, starting with the original paper from which all others derive, and the post-copy phase, in the fixed studio on Rue Popincourt. The processes of decomposition and recomposition unfold in multiple stages of creation. Intensity and depth are gestating within each layer of superposition.

“A Multitude of particles”
The new material, born from different states and a “multitude of particles derived from the letter”, has become his texture. As “there is time within words and space between them,”³ the sequences created by Max Wechsler present themselves as surfaces of spacetime. They suggest space where none exists, or perhaps succeed in “turning space into time.”⁴ Fragments of a universe in expansion, these works resist borders, frames, or thickness—at most distinguishing an inside from an outside. 

“Reclaiming the past”
Overlays and successive layers form an archaeology of memory. “Though materially absent, the letter leaves its trace, bearing witness to its origin.” The re-emergence of the sign through the dissolution of the letter’s appearance acts as a reclamation of the past. “Internalised memories carried into exile,” as the artist sometimes evokes, are accompanied by the “sudden loss of the mother tongue, leaving a sense of absence.” A past that also belongs to others, lost in the twists and turns of history.

“Between what has disappeared and what remains”
A return to origins with extreme precision, “as if someone were trying to pass the baton between what has disappeared and what remains.” Carriers of the world’s memories, the papers hold the potential to bring forth all the unspoken truths of the world in their fragmentation. Their tearing acts as a passage to “pierce the skin of things” ⁶.
“I like to associate what will forever be unknown with what, elsewhere, remains indelible,” the artist clarifies—a process that links erasure with what steadfastly endures beneath⁷.

“At the threshold of the visible and invisible”
As the material generates colour, the chromatic range defines itself. The artist works with black and white “on equal terms.” Monochromatic shades of black, white, and grey reveal subtle variations that open towards light—another kind of light, “the one that emanates from the work.” “My limit will always be to remain at the margin of the visible and the invisible.” Thus, any attempt at monochrome cannot be achieved. The impossibility of disappearance: one element gives birth to another, acts of creation arising from cut paper, a sudden expansion of the world⁸.

“Exploring the unrevealed”
Freed from its signifying form, the sign allows for the deconstruction of meaning to better approach the enigma and access this “sense emerging at the edge of signs” ⁹. ““Rather than evident language, I prefer to delve into the content: to explore the unrevealed,” an inexhaustible quest for the inner space. Beginning with what is no longer written—“all beginnings are obscure” ¹⁰ —and equal to what cannot be named, Max Wechsler’s fragments transcend the limits of visibility, engaging with the mystery of the unspeakable.

Dominique Dendraël, curator for the Musée du Hiéron. Paray-le-Monial.

1 - The texts in italic are excerpts from the artist's writings and an interview conducted in his studio in August 2014.
2 - Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "L'Œil et l'Esprit", Gallimard, 1964, p.32.
3 - Michel Cassé, "Du vide et de la création", Odile Jacob, 2001, p.29.
4 - Definition of painting by the Austrian novelist and poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, "Buch der Freunde",1922, "Le Livre des amis", ed. Maren Sell, coll. "Petite bibliothèque européenne ", 1990, p.68 in Joanna Rajkumar, "Désir de langage et aventure de lignes - Littérature et peinture chez Baudelaire, Hofmannsthal et Michaux", p.7.
5 - In Paris, at the end of January 1939, because he was Jewish.
6 - As coined by Henri Michaux.
7 - Sub (under) and sistere (from stare, to stand) form the Latin etymology of subsist (subsistere).