David Lynch: Someone is in my House

Bonnefantenmuseum presents extensive solo exhibition Someone is in my House by David Lynch

The extensive survey exhibition Someone is in my House by the American artist and filmmaker David Lynch will open in the Bonnefantenmuseum at 29 November 2018. David Lynch is undoubtedly a pivotal figure in the international film and TV world, but his work as a visual artist is less well known. Whereas Lynch himself has always stressed that he sees himself primarily as a visual artist. His mastery and use of an extremely varied range of media and techniques, from paintings to installations, demonstrate his influence in this capacity as well. This exceptionally artistic side to Lynch is still seldom exposed and presented in museums. In collaboration with David Lynch, the Bonnefantenmuseum presents the first museum presentation of David Lynch’s oeuvre in the Netherlands

David Lynch, visual artist
Lynch (1946, Missoula, Montana, US) was raised by parents who were keen on travelling, and he led a nomadic life from a young age. When he was fifteen, his first mentor was the father of a childhood friend, the painter Bushnell Keeler. Through Keeler, Lynch became interested in a book by American artist and teacher Robert Henri (1865–1929), The Art Spirit, which was to become the guiding principle in his work as an artist. A planned three-year study with the Austrian artist Oscar Kokoschka fell through because the artist did not turn up, so Lynch returned to the United States and enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia to study painting. It was there that he took the first step in combining two worlds. His desire to create “moving paintings” resulted in the short stop-motion animation Six Men Getting Sick (1967), which he projected onto a sculpted screen. In subsequent years, Lynch refined his visual idiom and made a number of short films. In 1977, he created the Surrealist Eraserhead, his first feature film after a creative process of five years. The multifaceted and distinctive worlds of Lynch keep recurring in his later films, from the shady scenes in Blue Velvet (1986) to the unconscious repetitions in Lost Highway (1997) and the mysteriousness of the masterly series Twin Peaks (1990–91).

Alongside producing his famous film works, David Lynch has always remained active as a visual artist. The exhibition in the Bonnefantenmuseum presents the many aspects of the underexposed yet versatile artistry of Lynch. Someone is in my House brings together over 500 works including paintings, photos, drawings, lithos and watercolours spanning the sixties to the present, unique drawings on matchbooks from the seventies, sketchbooks from the sixties, seventies and eighties, black and white photos from various periods, including the famous Snow Men photo series (1993), cartoons from the series The Angriest Dog in the World (1982–93), audio works and some short films from 1968–2015. And for the first time since its creation in 1967, the all-decisive academy work Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times) will be shown in a museum exhibition.

The strength of Lynch’s varied oeuvre lies in the fact that he chose for artistry early on and has always remained true to that choice. He takes a painter’s approach to everything he does and makes no concessions. Just as he has complete control during the painting process, so he is equally uncompromising with regard to the final cut when making a film. And whether he is taking photos, making furniture or producing music, Lynch the artist is always in control. This uncompromising attitude has led to an exceptional degree of consistency in the extensive oeuvre he has built up over the past 50 years.

Publication
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated monograph with essays by curator Stijn Huijts (artistic director Bonnefantenmuseum), Kristine McKenna (journalist and curator, United States), Petra Giloy-Hirtz (writer and curator, Germany) and Michael Chabon (writer, United States).

Fringe programme
In collaboration with the Lumière cinema in Maastricht and the EYE film museum in Amsterdam, there will be a special focus on the complete film oeuvre of David Lynch during the exhibition period, and a Lynch film programme will be rolled out across the Netherlands.

Exhibition teaser
In the run-up to his extensive retrospective Someone is in my House, David Lynch himself has produced a unique exhibition teaser for the Bonnefantenmuseum. In this typically Lynchian short film, which stars Lynch himself alongside the “White Monkey” (a character who previously appeared in Lynch’s Weird daily weather report), he invites the viewer to come to the Bonnefantenmuseum.

You can watch the teaser here.

The exhibition will run from November 30, 2018 to April 28, 2019. For more information: www.bonnefanten.nl