Vincent Van Gogh: Drawings: Influences and Innovations
Roni Horn: Butterfly to Oblivion
Tabaimo: Aitaisei-Josei
12 June–20 September 2015
Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles
35ter rue du Docteur Fanton
13200 Arles
France
Hours: Daily 11am–7pm
T +33 (0) 4 90 93 08 08
www.fondation-vincentvangogh-arles.org
Inaugurated in 2014, the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles pays homage to the Dutch artist via successive exhibitions of his work in conjunction with presentations of contemporary art, while at the same time offering a creative space conducive to new artistic production and debate. Its dynamic and eclectic programme and its wide-ranging education and outreach activities make the Fondation a leading actor in the cultural sphere, today highly regarded both within the region and beyond.
This summer the Fondation presents its second exhibition devoted to a specific aspect of Vincent van Gogh’s œuvre, which is showing alongside works by contemporary artists Roni Horn and Tabaimo.
The exhibition Van Gogh Drawings: Influences and Innovations brings together some 50 drawings by the artist, as well as a selection of works that inspired him, such as gravures of Rembrandt and Dürer and Japanese prints by Hiroshige. Today regarded as one of the greatest draughtsmen of the 19th century (and indeed of the 20th, when his talent was finally recognized), Van Gogh considered that a good command of drawing was an essential basis for a career as a painter.
In her exhibition Butterfly to Oblivion, American artist Roni Horn presents new, monumental glass sculptures as well as large-format pigment drawings and photographs. These latter share the common characteristic of having been cut up and reassembled, creating images infused with sustained tension and cohesion. It is in this force of their figuration that a certain affinity with the drawings of Van Gogh makes itself felt. Roni Horn is also showing works from her most recent Hack Wit series, in which idiomatic expressions are deconstructed, recombined and thereby reborn in new, poetic and graphic forms.
With her video installation aitaisei-josei, the contemporary Japanese artist Tabaimo takes her inspiration—like Van Gogh a century before her—from the linear beauty of Japanese prints, in order to create an animated film that is the reflection of a fantastical and disturbing imaginary world.
Exhibition curators: Sjraar van Heugten for Van Gogh Drawings: Influences & Innovations, Bice Curiger for Butterfly to Oblivion by Roni Horn and aitaisei-josei by Tabaimo.
Press relations: Pierre Collet, collet [at] aec-imagine.fr / T +33 680 84 87 71
*Roni Horn, Hack Wit—armed to bud (detail), 2014. © Roni Horn. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Vincent van Gogh, Seated Zouave, Arles, 1888. © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (purchased with support from the Vincent van Gogh Foundation). Design: Studio Marie Lusa.
