Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Paul Delvaux, Marlene Dumas, Jean Fautrier, Lucian Freud, Henri Laurens, Baltasar Lobo, Maximilien Luce, Roberto Matta, Henry Moore, Grayson Perry, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Judit Reigl, Kees Van Dongen
The exhibition explores the role the nude has played in influencing and informing artistic production from the end of the 19th century until today. In the context of modern and contemporary art history, artists have felt compelled to confront this theme by employing both figurative and abstract styles and experimenting with various media and techniques. The exhibition at Olivier Malingue will present different artistic interpretations of the nude, while giving the audience the freedom to analyse the differences and analogies between the different forms of nude presented.
The works featured in the exhibition present the interaction between idealised and stylised forms of nudity in relation to the anatomical features of the human body. At the same time, each work includes the artist's fantasies and conceptions gravitating around the idea of the nude. What emerges from the exhibition is that there isn't a traditional or standard manner of representing the nude, or for elevating its status from a physical to an ideal phenomenon. In fact, each work on view embodies a different perspective on the theme: from Picasso using the nude to subvert the norms of romantic relationships, to Delvaux and Matta both depicting the human body as an extension of the human subconscious. While Reigl used her pictorial language to represent the muscular strength of the male body, this is in direct contrast with Laurens, who explored the sinuous forms of the female body.
Presenting different ways of engaging with the theme of the nude, the exhibition also highlights how each artist considers the nude as a visual equation between the architectural features of the body and the psychology of human emotions.