Michael Borremans
dal 21/11/2012 al 16/2/2013
Segnalato da
21/11/2012
Michael Borremans
Bawag Contemporary, Wien
Magnetics. His paintings are still and their somnambulant characters recall old silent films, their plot and emotions likewise transported by images alone. His recent pictures flaunt their own fading, the color receding, if possible, even behind the canvas. The painting grows thinner, seems to dissolve, while the reality grows evermore unreal.
curated by Christine Kintisch
BAWAG Contemporary is pleased to present MAGNETICS, the first solo exhibition of
Belgian artist Michaël Borremans in Austria.
Michaël Borremans’s paintings are still and their somnambulant characters, use of
shadows, and accentuation of hands and gestures at times recall old silent films, their
plot and emotions likewise transported by images alone. An essential aspect of these
nature morte pictures is that they bring the enchanted characters so completely to life
on the canvas that one cannot imagine them as living somewhere else. Some of them,
which one might call the living dead, are painted in a pensive pose or semi-conscious
state right in the middle of the composition. While their faces are largely obscured,
the atmosphere is psychologically charged. The figures are captured in various stages
of reverie so total as to negate the presence of the viewer.
They suggest corpses lying in state, the appear as objects on display in glass cases, the
faces recall death masks, while the objects themselves seem like personifications of
mental states. The gruesome sight of the female figure in The Case (2009), taken from
a horror movie or a forensic photograph permits no reverie—she could be the victim
of a secret crime or simply asleep. Yet, against one’s will, the delicacy with which
this painting is executed has a stimulating effect. Red Hand, Green Hand (2010)
shows two hands engaged in what might be some kind of necromantic divination.
The painted hands place the psychic séance’s magically charged gesture at an
unbridgeable remove. The sense of familiarity and intimacy gives way to an intense
disturbance.
Borremans’s recent pictures flaunt their own fading, the color receding, if possible,
even behind the canvas. The painting grows thinner, seems to dissolve, while the real-
ity grows evermore unreal. In paintings such as The Load (2009), or Magnetics (2009),
one seems to be looking through some sort of drifting smoke or veil at colors and
shapes of diminished physicality, so to speak, images of a faded world, a milkmaid
wearing a strange cap on her head, a Columbine who lowers her gaze when one
looks at her. These faces appear out of the unearthly darkness like “shadows of reality
seemingly arising out of nowhere, like memories that return to us in the middle of
the night, only to fade away again when we try to hold them fast, like a photographic
print left for too long in the developer” (W.G. Sebald). Shapes and colors dissolve
in the haze of this twilit world in which there is no more contrast, no shades, only
flowing, light-quickened transitions, a single blur from which only the most fleeting
phenomena emerge.
Michaël Borremans
Biography
Michaël Borremans (born 1963, Geraadsbergen) most recent solo exhibition took
place at the Württembergischen Kunstverein Stuttgart in 2011; the retrospective was
subsequently shown at the Mücsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest and the Kunsthalle
Helsinki. Additional solo exhibitions: Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo and the Royal Palace
in Brussels (2010); Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2009); de Appel Arts Centre,
Amsterdam (2007); La maison rouge, Paris (2006); Kunsthalle Bremerhaven and the
Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2004); Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst
(S.M.A.K.), Ghent; Parasol unit Foundation for contemporary art, London; Royal
Hibernian Academy, Dublin and Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio (2005).
Borremans’s work is included in the following collections: Art Institute of Chicago;
High Museum of Art Atlanta, Georgia; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Musée d ́Art
Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Canada,
Ottawa; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst
(S.M.A.K.), Ghent; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Michaël Borremans lives and works in Ghent.
Curator:
Christine Kintisch
Organization:
Elisabeth Hofbauer
Technical coordination:
museum standards, mu.st. OG
Curator concerts:
Stephen Mathewson
Educational program:
Wolfgang Brunner
Social Media:
Alina Brad
Webmaster:
Christian Leberwurst
Webcontent:
Elisabeth Hochwarter
Sound engineering:
prilfish veranstaltungstechnik
Video:
Kurt van der Vloedt – artvan
Photography:
Oliver Ottenschläger
Graphic design:
Angela Althaler, a+o
Architecture:
propeller z
Image: Michael Borremans, The Case, 2009, 50,0 x 42,0 cm, oil on canvas, Private collection, Belgium, Foto: Peter Cox
Press relations:
Mag. Christina Werner
w.hoch.2wei.
Kulturelles Projektmanagement
t 43/1/ 524 96 46-22
f 43/1/ 524 96 32
werner@kunstnet.at
Press Download:
bawagcontemporary.at/presse
Opening: Thursday, November 22, 7 p.m.
Press preview: Thursday, November 22, 10 a.m.
BAWAG Contemporary
Franz-Josefs-Kai 3 - A-1010 Vienna
open daily from 2 to 8 p.m.
Accompanying events
Guided tours
each Thursday at 6 p.m.
Admission free