Galleria Continua
Beijing
Dashanzi 798. # 8503, 2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang Dst.
+86 10 6436 1005 FAX +86 10 6436 4464
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Berlinde De Bruyckere
dal 21/12/2012 al 16/3/2013
tue-sun 11am-6pm, closed 1 january, 9-15 february 2013

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Galleria Continua


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Berlinde De Bruyckere



 
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21/12/2012

Berlinde De Bruyckere

Galleria Continua, Beijing

All the artist's work stages the dualism between life and death, suffering and love. The group of works on display provide an intense and fully representative sample of his work. A central work in the exhibition is 'We Are All Flesh (Istanbul)', made by slowly and carefully sewing together pieces of horse hide.


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Galleria Continua is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in China by the well-known Belgian artist Berlinde
De Bruyckere.

An internationally acclaimed artist, since the 1990s Berlinde De Bruyckere (Ghent, Belgium, 1964) has used organic
materials such as wax, horse hair and skin, wood and fabrics to produce disturbing, alienated and solitary images. The
focus of her work is a profound meditation on the nature of sculpture, conducted by means of a careful observation of
art history. She draws on a variety of artistic influences, ranging from North European Renaissance masters like Roger
Van der Weiden, Van Eyck, Robert Campin and Lucas Cranach through to Luca Giordano and the magnificent art of
the Italian Seicento, from which are borrowed sudden flares of light and looming shadows.

All the artist’s work stages the dualism between life and death, suffering and love. In her sculptures, De Bruyckere
observes the precariousness of human existence; her works appear to be images of a widespread archetypal pain,
offering themselves up in their vulnerable existence to the viewer’s gaze. The human body, represented in highly
realistic postures, is articulated in all its different forms: the skin is furrowed by folds which, together with a lattice of
veins and arteries, weave an intricate pattern; the muscles are rendered with a keen anatomical eye; while the pallor of
the flesh is a reminder of the transience of life. The bodies are explored by way of subtraction: the figures, always
incomplete and faceless, are the portrait of a fragmentary existence.

The group of works on display in the show have been chosen to provide an intense and fully representative sample of
the work of an artist who, in the course of her career, has composed a gallery of works charged with sensuality and
force, realized in wax or horse hide, which describe a world of emotions, fragile tenderness and love.
A central work in the exhibition is We Are All Flesh (Istanbul), made by slowly and carefully sewing together pieces of
horse hide. Suspended and with essential features, the posture exalts the vigorous and powerful traits of the animal, in
which human qualities and the dualism between life and death come together.

Actaeon, inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, centres on the unfortunate fate of Actaeon, who was turned into a stag by
the goddess Diana and then devoured by his own hounds. Scattered across a table, a simple plinth, is a tangle of
branch-like stag antlers mixed up with strips of cloth, like an abandoned memory of the young hunter, an image of
broken youth. The sculpture combines raw and delicate images, and of strength and power, sensuality and suffering.
Stag antlers, this time as an image of nature rather than as a metaphor of suffering, also feature in Rodt, interlaced
branches in a precious wunderkammer.

009-, 2011-2012 is a large old glass display cabinet housing tree branches and trunks modelled in wax. The trees
appear to be memories of the past, with knots and veining emerging from the texture of the wax. Wood, as an organic
changeable element, is a powerful symbol associated with life.

Berlinde de Bruyckere was born in 1964, in Ghent, where she lives and works. She has shown extensively in recent
years, with solo shows including We Are All Flesh, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia
(2012); The Wound, Arter, Istanbul, Turkey (2012); Mysterium Leib. Berlinde De Bruyckere im Dialog mit Cranach und
Pasolini, which opened at the Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle, Germany, and then travelled to the Kunstmuseum Bern,
Switzerland (2011); DHC / ART Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, Canada (2011); Hauser & Wirth Zürich,
Switzerland (2010); Schmerzensmann, Hauser & Wirth London, Piccadilly (2006); Eén, De Pont Foundation for
Contemporary Art, Tilburg, Netherlands (2005).

The artist is going to represent Belgium at the 55. Venice Biennale in 2013.

Image: Berlinde De Bruyckere - Lijfje, 2009. Cera, legno, coperte, 150 x 105 x 105 cm

GALLERIACONTINUA / Beijing 常青画廊/北京
# 8503, Dashanzi 798 Art Factory, 2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang Dst. Beijing, 100015 China
Tue-Sun 11am-6pm
Closed
1 January 2013
From 9 to 15 February 2013

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