Berlinde De Bruyckere The Embalmer 18|04–05|07|2015

KUB 2015.02 | Press Release
Berlinde
De Bruyckere
The Embalmer
18|04–05|07|2015
An Exhibition at two Venues
in Cooperation with Kunstraum Dornbirn
Joint Press Conference at Kunsthaus Bregenz
Wednesday, April 15, 2015, 10.30 a.m.
Press Photographs for Downloading
www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Exhibition Opening Kunstraum Dornbirn
Thursday, April 16, 2015, 8 p.m.
Exhibition Opening Kunsthaus Bregenz
Friday, April 17, 2015, 7 p.m.
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Berlinde De Bruyckere (born 1964 in Ghent) has risen to
prominence through numerous exhibitions, in Montreal,
Melbourne, Istanbul, Bern, Graz, and Ghent, amongst other
places. In 2013 she staged the Belgian Pavilion at the
Venice Biennale. The artist employs casts from wax and
artificial resin, animal hides, metal, wood, and fabric in her
sculptures. Her works open up multiple references to
painting and sculpture’s art historical traditions. Christian
and mythological subject matter, but also the horse as a
victim on the battlefields of Flanders, and dead trees are
evidence of growth and decay.
The exhibition The Embalmer in cooperation with
Kunstraum Dornbirn has been conceived as an exhibition
for two venues. A large-scale installation of Berlinde De
Bruyckere’s new horse sculptures will be on display in
Kunstraum Dornbirn’s industrial spaces concurrently to the
presentation at Kunsthaus Bregenz, which will include
sculptures, installations, drawings, and collages exhibited
across three floors. The two presentations cumulatively
generate a fascinating overview of the Belgian artist’s
extraordinarily diverse output.
Sculptures from the series Liggende and Actaeon and
drawings from the series Romeu »My Deer« complement
and reinforce each other, in a collective statement on the
first floor of Kunsthaus Bregenz. They revolve around the
metamorphosis of humans and animals as well as life and
death. According to Greek mythology, Actaeon came across
the goddess Diana bathing. As a punishment, Diana
transformed him into a deer which was subsequently torn
apart by his own dogs. Together with the dancer Romeu
Runa, De Bruyckere has developed drawings and a dance
performance addressing this subject, that will be staged at
Kunsthaus Bregenz. For Actaeon, wax antlers bundled in
piles lie on wooden plinths. The sculptures Liggende I and
Liggende II, modeled on human bodies, rest on similar
wooden plinths. They evoke pathology tables, victims, or
the body of Christ taken down from the cross.
The second floor is dominated by the 18 meter long, largescale work Kreupelhout/Cripplewood, which debuted at the
Belgian Pavilion of the Biennale di Venezia 2013. Inspired
by the crown of a gigantic elm, felled during a storm, the
artist created a monumental sculpture, whose surface
coloring lends the shattered tree a human vulnerability.
Wounds, scars, and arteries translucent beneath the bark,
transform the tree into a being between human, animal,
and plant.
For the third floor the artist has produced a completely
new group of works of stacked animal hides from wax,
polyester, and iron. This work was preceded by the artist’s
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intense observations of the processing of animal hides in
in a Brussels slaughterhouse. Departing from the same
formal repertoire, De Bruyckere has concurrently
developed a stage set for the premiere of the piece
Penthesilea, a composition by Pascal Dusapin based on
Heinrich von Kleist, for the La Monnaie opera house in
Brussels.
Berlinde De Bruyckere — The Embalmer
at Kunsthaus Bregenz
18 | 04—05 | 07 | 2015
Exhibition Opening: Friday, April 17, 2015 | 7 p.m.
Berlinde De Bruyckere — The Embalmer
at Kunstraum Dornbirn
17 | 04—05 | 07 | 2015
Exhibition Opening: Thursday, April 16, 2015 | 8 p.m.
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KUB Arena 2015.02 | Press Release
Dexter Sinister
18|04–05|07|2015
Press Conference
Wednesday, April 15, 2015, 10.30 a.m.
Dexter Sinister is a New York-based collaboration founded
in 2006 by Stuart Bailey (UK) and David Reinfurt (USA) to
model a just-in-time economy of print production, counter
to the assembly-line of large-scale publishing. Since then
the name has variously referred to a publishing imprint, a
workshop/bookstore on New York's Lower East Side, and
work produced for and often within art institutions.
Following Dot Dot Dot, a journal originally co-founded by
Stuart Bailey, in 2010 the Duo initiated the Bulletins of
The Serving Library as a new, biannual publication. They
are published as online PDFs and as analog hard copies
twice-yearly. Each of its issues can be considered as a
cooperatively-constructed archive, that assembles itself by
publishing and is host to a wide variety of artistic and
critical voices across disciplines. The issues are often the
product of specific events or exhibition-related
circumstances.
For KUB Arena Dexter Sinister will be developing a sitespecific presentation providing insights into their
»publishing« work at the intersection of design, editing,
publishing and distribution.
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Partners and Sponsors
Kunsthaus Bregenz would like to thank all its partners for
their generous financial support and their commitment to
culture.
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Exhibition Venue | Organizing Institution
Kunsthaus Bregenz
Director | Curator
from May 2015 Thomas D. Trummer
Commercial Director
Werner Döring
Curator
Rudolf Sagmeister
Curator KUB Arena
Eva Birkenstock
Marketing | Sponsoring
Birgit Albers | ext. -413
b.albers@kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Press | Online Media
Martina Feurstein | ext. -410
m.feurstein@kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Art Education
Kirsten Helfrich ext. -417
k.helfrich@kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Publications | Artist Editions
Katrin Wiethege | ext. -411
k.wiethege@kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Edition Sales
Caroline Schneider | ext. -444
c.schneider@kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Opening Times
Tuesday to Sunday 10 am – 6 pm
Thursday 10 am – 9 pm
Ticket Counter | ext. -433
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