Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo pays homage to Berlinde De Bruyckere with a major monographic exhibition

From November 1, 2019 to March 15, 2020, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo is hosting a major monographic exhibition dedicated to Berlinde De Bruyckere (Ghent, 1964). For the exhibition, the artist has devised a body of work visible throughout the exhibition space as an organic narrative: a series of monumental sculptures and a large environmental installation.

Curated by Irene Calderoni, the exhibition is inspired by a place the artist recently visited that has influenced his production: a leather processing workshop in Anderlecht, Belgium. Here, freshly torn animal hides are stacked on wide pallets and covered with salt in order to preserve them for later treatments. A place steeped in powerful images and extreme sensations, of vast, nameless death and the emergence of something new, it shapes key themes, such as the relationship between life and death, Eros and Thanatos, beauty and anguish. It is a repugnant place that nevertheless can evoke anidea of sacredness in relation to the mortal remains of the body, and as such embodies the question at the heart of Berlinde De Bruyckere’s work, namely how to approach the intolerable and how to redeem it.

The figure of the animal skin plays a key role in the artist’s production. The skins undergo a series of different operations, cast and reproduction in wax, folding, draping, constriction and deformation. Evocative of an act of cruelty and suffering, the skin alludes to the body through its absence; it is an ambivalent image that speaks of wounds and contact.

With this exhibition, the artist intends to convey the theme of the suffering of living beings: “At this moment in history, when extremism and racism proliferate, when compassion and solidarity have dried up, when we see too many similarities to the restlessness of the 1930s that preceded the unmentionable monstrosities of the Holocaust, and that particular defamation of civilization is even denied by people with too much political power, I feel the need to come up with bold, strong images. I want to bring that room to the public. As a physical, immersive experience.”

For info: http: //fsrr.org/

Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo pays homage to Berlinde De Bruyckere with a major monographic exhibition

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