THERE THEY WERE, THE GALLERIES I WAS LOOKING FOR

I had tried to go to a couple of galleries with exhibitions recommended by Jerome but as I told you - I never found them. While the sun was still shining off I went yesterday morning and with quite a few detours, I go there. Next time around it will be very simple. I do wish I had a better a better sense of direction. What is the answer?

The first exhibition was Adrian Ghenie. Born in Baia Mare Romania in 1977 and now living and working in Berlin, Adrian Ghenie is currently representing Romania in the 56th Venice Biennale.

« Brought up in post-Ceausescu Romania, his work often dwells on the darker moments of post-war European history and the personalities whose actions have defined its course. Collective and personal memories, film stills, images culled from the Internet and art historical references are cut out and fused to make up the fabric of his paintings. Adrian Ghenie speaks of “painting the texture of history” and it is his fascination in recapturing these lost textures that give rise to the artist’s extraordinarily expressive use of paint.

The “self” takes center stage. This subject has been a central theme for the artist since 2010 culminating in just over twenty distinct “Self-Portraits”. Comprising of either pure investigations of his own self-image or hybrids such a Self-Portrait as Vincent Van Gogh (2014), Self-Portrait as Charles Darwin (2014) and Self-Portrait as a Monkey (2014).

Ghenie talks of his fascination with the way Picasso and Francis Bacon, in particular, deconstructed the human face and how he sees the face as a landscape made up of a series of undulating surfaces, protrusions and a myriad of different textures ».


The text comes from the Thaddeus Ropac home page in a shorter version. Jerome had talked about the Bacon influence. For me there was something even more ambiguous than Bacon’s work which you know I follow closely. Here the bright colors in contrast to Bacon’s duller shades seem to bring a realism to the face.










However, until Jerome pointed out the similarity between one of the portraits and Van Gogh, I had not seen it in the gallery. It was very visible on the iPhone.



One young man stood in front of this painting for a good ten minutes. He moved on and I took my photograph and looked even more intensely at the painting. What had he seen? What was so compelling? I moved away and he came back and stood there again. I’ll never know what had attracted him so much but there was something.


 


Upstairs then to see Robert Rauschenenberg. An American born in 1925 and who left us in 2008.


Have seen a lot of his work, mainly
assemblage and installations. He has never really attracted me as I don’t find that it « breathes » Too crowded me me.




He has been called a forerunner of every postwar artistic development since Abstract Expressionism.

He died on May 12, 2008 in his studio on Captiva Island, Florida.  His artistic legacy and his lifelong commitment to collaboration with performers, artisans, and engineers worldwide was recognized long before his death and will surely live on.

What I saw was a little less cluttered so I was able to take a closer look at his work, more so than usual.

















One painting I really liked. It seemed so unlike to what I knew…..




Now onto the next gallery…the Karsten Greve to see Soulages….

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Lo a dit…
I did enjoy Adrian Ghenie's work but Robert Rauschenenberg was definitely not my cup of tea! Reminded me of Twombly...
28/12/15 10:57
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