Exhibition dates: 2nd June – 29th July 2012
Apologies, just a short review as I have been sick all weekend. It’s hard to think straight with a thumping headache…
- An interesting exhibition with several strong elements
- Wonderful use of the ACCA space. Nice to see the building allowed to speak along with the work; in other words a minimal install that shows off the work and the building to advantage. ACCA could do more of this.
- The main work We Are All Flesh (2012, below) reminded me of a version of the game The Hanged Man (you know, the one where you have to guess the letters of a word and if you don’t get the letter, the scaffold and the hanged man are drawn). The larger of the two hanging pieces featured two horse skins of different colours intertwined like a ying yang paux de deux. Psychologically the energy was very heavy. The use of straps to suspend the horses was inspired. Memories of Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp and The Godfather rose to the surface…
- I found it difficult to get past the fact that the sculptures were built on an armature with epoxy = the construction of these objects, this simulacra, had to be put to the back of my mind but was still there
- Inside me III (2012, below) was a strong work reminding me of an exposed spinal column being supported by thin rope and fragile trestles. Excellent
- The series of work Romeu “my deer” (2012, below) was the least strong in the exhibition. Resembling antler horns or the blood vessels of the aorta bound together with futon like wadding, the repetition of form simply emphasised the weakness of the conceptual idea
- My favourite piece was 019 (2007, below). Elegant in its simplicity this beautiful display case from a museum was dismantled and shipped over to Australia in parts and then reassembled here. The figurative pieces of wood, made of wax, seemed like bodies drained of blood displayed as specimens. The blankets underneath added an element of comfort. The whole piece was restrained and beautifully balanced. Joseph Beuys would have been very proud!
- The “visceral gothic” contained in the exhibition was very evident. I liked the artist’s trembling and shuddering. Her narratives aroused a frisson, a moment of intense danger and excitement, the sudden terror of the risen animal
Dr Marcus Bunyan
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Many thankx to the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Berlinde De Bruyckere (Belgian, b. 1964)
We Are All Flesh
2012
Treated horse skin, epoxy, iron armature
280 x 160 x 100cm
Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Galleria Continua
Berlinde De Bruyckere (Belgian, b. 1964)
We Are All Flesh (detail)
2012
Treated horse skin, epoxy, iron armature
280 x 160 x 100cm
Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Galleria Continua.
Berlinde De Bruyckere uses wax, wood, wool, horse skin and hair to make haunting sculptures of humans, animals and trees in metamorphosis.
Based in her home town of Ghent, Berlinde De Bruyckere’s studio is an old neo-Gothic Catholic school house. From here she creates her incredible sculptures – torsos morph into branches, trees are captured and displayed inside old museum cabinets and cast horses are crucified upside down in works that have been described as brutal, challenging, inspiring and both frightening and comforting.
Heavily influenced by the old masters, De Bruyckere’s early years at boarding school were spent hiding in the library, pouring over books on the history of catholic art. She went on to study at the Saint-Lucas Visual Arts School in Ghent, and was known in the early stages of her career for using old woollen blankets in her works, sometimes simply stacked on tables of beds, a response to news footage she had seen of blanket-swathed refugees in Rwanda.
Her breakthrough work In Flanders Fields, five life-size splay-legged horses captured in the throes of death, was commissioned by the In Flanders Fields Museum, in the town of Ypres, the site of the legendary World War 1 battle. She was then invited to participate in the 2003 Venice Biennale, and the subsequent work, an equine form curled up on a table titled Black Horse, firmly established her on the international scene. She has since had solo exhibitions at Hauser & Wirth in Zurich and New York and in prestigious museums across Europe.
“Berlinde De Bruyckere creates works that recall the visceral gothic of Flemish trecento art, updated to a new consideration of the human condition,” says Juliana Engberg, ACCA Artistic Director.
“Her work taps into our human need to experience transformation and transcendence, to experience great depths of feeling transferred from the animal to human. Through experiencing Berlinde’s amazing sculptural works we come closer to the human condition and the tragedy and drama of mortality, out of which something miraculous occurs in metamorphosis.”
We are all Flesh will include the rarely seen and iconic work 019 and two new commissions created specially for this exhibition.
Text from the ACCA website
Berlinde De Bruyckere (Belgian, b. 1964)
019
2007
Wax, epoxy, metal, glass, wood, blankets
293.5 x 517 x 77.5cm
Private Collection, Paris
Berlinde De Bruyckere (Belgian, b. 1964)
019 (detail)
2007
Wax, epoxy, metal, glass, wood, blankets
293.5 x 517 x 77.5cm
Private Collection, Paris
What is the Meaning of Trecento (1300-1400)
The term “trecento” (Italian for ‘three hundred’) is short for “milletrecento” (‘thirteen hundred’), meaning the fourteenth century. A highly creative period, it witnessed the emergence of Pre-Renaissance Painting, as well as sculpture and architecture during the period 1300-1400. In fact, since the trecento coincides with the Pre-Renaissance movement, the term is often used as a synonym for Proto-Renaissance art – that is, the bridge between Medieval Gothic art and the Early Renaissance. The following century (1400-1500) is known as the quattrocento, and the one after that (1500-1600) is known as the cinquecento.
The main types of art practised during the trecento period showed relatively little change from Romanesque times. They included: fresco painting, tempera panel painting, book-painting or illuminated manuscripts, metalwork, relief sculpture, goldsmithery and mosaics.
Berlinde De Bruyckere (Belgian, b. 1964)
Inside me III
2012
Wax, wool, cotton, wood, epoxy, iron armature
135 x 235 x 115cm
Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Galleria Continua
Berlinde De Bruyckere (Belgian, b. 1964)
Romeu “my deer”
2012
Pencil, watercolour, collage
37.5 x 28cm
Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Galleria Continua
Berlinde De Bruyckere (Belgian, b. 1964)
Romeu “my deer” (detail)
2012
Pencil, watercolour, collage
37.5 x 28cm
Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Galleria Continua
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA)
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Victoria 3006
Australia
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