Berlinde De Bruyckere
to Zurbarán, 2015
2015
Horse skin, fabric, wood, iron, polyester
120 x 160 x 130 cm / 47 1/4 x 63 x 51 1/8 in
Photo: Mirjam Devriendt
‘Berlinde De Bruyckere No Life Lost’ at Hauser & Wirth Hauser & Wirth presents ‘No Life Lost’, an exhibition of recent sculptures and drawings by internationally admired Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere. 28 January – 2 April 2016.]]>
Source: Hauser & Wirth
The centerpiece of the exhibition is De Bruyckere’s monumental project ‘Kreupelhout – Cripplewood, 2012 – 2013’ (2013), shown here for the first time in the United States. The largest and most ambitious work by the artist to date, this massive, darkly beautiful and acclaimed installation – a collaboration with Nobel Prize novelist J M Coetzee – debuted at the Belgian Pavilion of the 55th edition of the Venice Biennale in 2013.
Traditions of the Flemish Renaissance have exerted a profound influence upon Berlinde De Bruyckere’s art. Drawing from the legacies of the European Old Masters and Christian iconography, as well as mythology and cultural lore, the artist layers existing histories with new narratives suggested by contemporary world events to create a psychological terrain of pathos, tenderness and repulsion. Working with casts made of wax, animal skins, hair, textiles, metal and wood, she renders haunting distortions of organic forms – abstracted and contorted figures of fragile materials that achieve an almost alchemical metamorphosis into mortifying flesh. Through these works De Bruyckere grapples with the dualities of the human condition. In desire and suffering, horror and beauty, fragility and strength, hope and dismay, she locates a poetic grace that manages to endure in the ruins of the corporeal world. Her art is a powerful meditation upon the fundamental human search for transformation, transcendence and reconciliation in the face of mortality.
‘Berlinde De Bruyckere. No Life Lost’ will remain on view at Hauser & Wirth’s 511 West 18th Street location through 2 April 2016.
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Berlinde De Bruyckere at Hauser & Wirth (exhibition, 2010)
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