Sanguine / Bloedrood

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    During the cultural city festival Antwerp Baroque 2018. Rubens Inspires, the M HKA, the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, juxtaposes the spirit of the baroque masters with the vision of contemporary top artists. With the exhibition Sanguine/Bloedrood (Blood Red), curator Luc Tuymans aims to overwhelm the visitor by placing key works from the baroque of, among others, Francisco de Zurbarán and Caravaggio, in dialogue with works by classical contemporary masters, such as On Kawara and Edward Kienholz, as well as new works by contemporary stars such as Zhang Enli, Takashi Murakami, Michaël Borremans, Sigmar Polke and Tobias Rheberger. 

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    Javier Téllez

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    Snow White doesn't live here anymore, 2010
    Javier Téllez
    Mixed Media , variable dimensions

    In El Hotel Eléctrico, Téllez presents an installation consisting of eight masked lamps with the evocative title Snow White Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (2010). Of course, this immediately provokes certain associations, but raises questions as well. Snow White is gone, the Seven Dwarfs remain. But then who is hiding under lamp number eight? And why do they all wear balaclavas? The balaclava, or more broadly the mask, is an often recurring element in Téllez’s works and film installations, for example in the video La Batalla de Mexico (2004). Here, a fictional militant/patient wearing a balaclava takes over a psychiatric hospital in Mexico City.

    In Snow White Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Téllez takes a symbol of domestic conviviality, a mood lamp, and turns it into its opposite: a glowing, but rather malefic, animistic object that is brought to life. While in Disney’s films the nasty side of fairy tales is systematically coated with a sugary gloss, Téllez's provocation is to turn these dwarfs into potential robbers. Instead of bathing us in a tranquil glow, this anthropomorphic assembly seems intent on emitting fear.

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