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Comunicato stampa dal sito http://www.belgianpavilion.be/
Berlinde DE
BRUYCKERE
Kreupelhout –
Cripplewood
PAVILION OF
BELGIUM
55TH
INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION
LA BIENNALE DI
VENEZIA
JUNE 1ST –
NOVEMBER 24TH 2013
As the
commissioning authority for the 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale
di Venezia in 2013, Joke Schauvliege, the Flemish Minister of the Environment,
Nature and Culture, has announced that Ghent-based artist Berlinde De Bruyckere
will represent Belgium at the 118-year old international event. In her comments
about this commission, The Minister cited De Bruyckere’s profound commitment to
exploring universal issues of the human condition, as well as the relationship
of her art to the great continuum of history. Over the past three decades, De
Bruyckere has created a consistent body of work that is still evolving and has
the power to transform her participation in the Biennale into a lasting international
presence.
S.M.A.K., the
Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent, is organising the Belgian presentation at
the 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, which opens to
the public
on 1 June 2013.
For the Belgian
Pavilion in Venice, De Bruyckere has conceived a new site-specific installation
that builds upon her existing oeuvre but derives its potency from connections
to the historical context of Venice. She has invited acclaimed writer J.M.
Coetzee, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature, to serve as curator and
artistic collaborator. De Bruyckere and Coetzee have followed one another’s
work for years. Coetzee stated, “I have long admired the work of Berlinde De
Bruyckere. More importantly, I have been touched (aangeraak) by her work in
ways that are often obscure to me. I would not wish it otherwise.
Her sculptures
explore life and death – death in life, life in death, life before life, death
before death – in the most intimate and most disturbing way. They bring
illumination, but the illumination is as dark as it is profound”.
De Bruyckere has
said that she sees in Coetzee “a kindred spirit” and senses in his work the
all-devouring need to write about what she also feels in creating her
sculptures.
Coetzee will not
perform the traditional task of an artistic curator, but will act as a source
of inspiration and a partner in dialogue for De Bruyckere. “To discuss plans
and projects with her, and if the gods are on our side, to guide and be guided
by her in her explorations,” Coetzee explained. This unique collaboration in
Venice is a logical extension of a joint project from 2012, when De Bruyckere
and Coetzee published the book ‘Allen Vlees (All Flesh)’, combining her images
with his writings. The artist selected key passages from Coetzee’s books and
arranged them alongside photos of details from her sculptures. In this way,
words are juxtaposed with images to suggest two parallel worlds that enrich but
do not overtly illustrate each other.
In addition to
J.M. Coetzee, Berlinde De Bruyckere invited Philippe Van Cauteren, S.M.A.K.
artistic director since 2006, to serve as the Belgian Pavilion co-curator.
Under his directorship the museum has held major monographic exhibitions by
Lois Weinberger, Kendell Geers, Paul McCarthy, Mark Manders, Dara Birnbaum,
Jorge Macchi, Nedko Solakov, Joachim Koester, as well as artistic projects in
public space like TRACK. Van Cauteren is currently organising a retrospective
of the work of Berlinde De Bruyckere, which will be shown at S.M.A.K. in 2014
and at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague (Netherlands).
Belgian Pavilion
Catalogue
The official
catalogue of the 2013 Belgian Pavilion will be published by Mercatorfonds. As
with her previous publications, Berlinde De Bruyckere will create an artist’s book
rather than a traditional exhibition catalogue. It will include essays by J.M.
Coetzee; Philippe Van Cauteren; Herman Parret, Professor Emeritus at the Higher
Institute of Philosophy at Leuven University (Belgium); and Berlinde De
Bruyckere. Photographs will be included by Mirjam Devriendt.
Bio
Berlinde De
Bruyckere (Ghent, 1964) makes her sculptures in a personal, highly physical and
expressive visual idiom. She delves deep into man’s omnipresent needs and
fears. Elements such as vulnerability, mortality and solitude run through her
oeuvre. She takes inspiration from literature and film history, but her
sculptural work also displays a great affinity for such old masters as Lucas
Cranach and Antonello da Messina. As Ovid wrote in his Metamorphoses, ‘My mind
leads me to speak of figures changed into new bodies’. This is a challenge that
Berlinde De Bruyckere has also taken up. In her work, mutilation and suspected
violence assume extreme forms; they will always be related to the possibility
of transfiguration and growth.
Berlinde De
Bruyckere regularly exhibits in major museums and institutions in Belgium and
abroad. Her recent exhibitions include 'Philippe Vandenberg & Berlinde De
Bruyckere. Innocence is precisely: never to avoid the worst', De Pont Museum of
Contemporary Art, Tilburg (Netherlands) in 2012; 'The Wound', Arter, Istanbul
(Turkey) in 2012; 'We are all Flesh', Australian Centre for Contemporary Art,
Melbourne (Australia) in 2012; 'Mysterium Leib. Berlinde De Bruyckere im Dialog
mit Cranach und Pasolini', which opened at Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle
(Germany) and travelled to Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland in 2011; and a solo
exhibition at (DHC / ART Foundation for Contemporary Art,Montreal, Canada
in 2011. De Bruyckere’s exhibition, ‘In the Flesh’ was on view this year at
Kunsthaus Graz and the St Dominikus Chapel in Graz (Austria).
www.smak.be
With the support
of the Flemish authorities
