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. 

antwerpenbarok2018.be

Lili Dujourie

(c)image: M HKA
Koraal [Coral], 1978-1978
Video , 00:06:23

Koraal [Choral] shows, in a grainy black and white, the hands of the artist peeling an orange and elegantly and tenderly dividing it into segments. By zooming in on this ordinary action the images are given an almost ritual character. The title of the work alludes to this ritual element. Lili Dujourie links the choral, a protestant hymn, to the movement of the hands, which evokes a certain rhythm and creates a silence. The picking of this title is determined by the poetic quality of the word ‘choral’, by the associations and memories it evokes from the artist. There is no storyline, only a registration of minimal gestures. The passing of time, a crucial theme in Dujourie’s work, becomes palpable. The use of black and white defines the nature of the work. The image of the orange is immediately associated with colour, as a result of which the orange ‘filters through’ in the image. The emphasis is rather on the action, than on the form or colour. The peeling of the orange has a sensual character, but the orange is also eaten: according to the artist, Choral is about destroying things out of love.