Berlinde De Bruyckere
The Wound
21 June–26 August 2012
Curated by Selen Ansen.
ARTER – space for art
Istiklal Caddesi, 211
Beyoğlu, Istanbul
Turkey
Hours: Tue–Thu, 11–19; Fri–Sun, 12–20
Çukurcuma Hammam:
Tue–Thu, 15–19; Fri–Sun, 15–20
Admission is free.
From 21 June onwards, ARTER will be hosting a solo exhibition by the Flemish artist Berlinde De Bruyckere. Entitled The Wound, the exhibition is curated by art historian and theorist Selen Ansen.
Berlinde De Bruyckere frequently uses material such as wax, wood, fabric, horse skin, and hair to produce sculptures and drawings that refer to the body’s fragility, to suffering and desire. The Wound presents, alongside De Bruyckere’s sculptures and drawings, a number of new pieces which the artist has produced especially for the exhibition in Istanbul.
De Bruyckere’s new works displayed at ARTER lend their title to the exhibition and are inspired by an old medical photography album the artist discovered at a library in Istanbul. The works in the exhibition contribute altogether to the embodiment of the pattern and the symbol of the “wound” through the dialogue the artist establishes between form and texture.
Two of the new works created for the exhibition will be installed at the Çukurcuma Hammam, a 19th-century hammam building, as part of the exhibition. This space was included as an exhibition venue at the artist’s request, who wished to engage her work in a dialogue with the local context and architectural heritage. This additional exhibition site also refers to the idea of cleansing the body, rubbing off the extra layer of skin, which in a sense implies moulting. The two new works entitled Actaeon, 2011–2012 and We Are All Flesh (Istanbul), 2011–2012 are presented in this venue, establishing an organic conceptual connection between the artist’s practice and the local spatial context.
The exhibition will also feature, as an integral element, daily performances by the French dancer and choreographer Vincent Dunoyer, who effectively “lends” his body to the artist and to the exhibition with the performance entitled Loan and his image through his video work Vanity. Becoming the object and the subject simultaneously, the dancer builds his own artistic gesture from this “loan” and creates an intense dialogue between the inertia of the sculpture and the movement of his body. Dunoyer will perform every day except Mondays and Tuesdays on ARTER’s first floor at 15h and 18:30h.
The Wound will run until 26 August 2012.
