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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    Sanguine/Bloedrood. Luc Tuymans on Baroque

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    Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018 / © SABAM, Brussels 2018
    Basic Research, 1989
    Isa Genzken
    Painting , 90 x 75 cm
    oil on canvas

    In the late 1980s, Isa Genzken makes a remarkable series of abstract paintings under the title Basic Research. These are similar canvases that are completely dominated by the remarkable use of the paint, which allows Genzken to create topographies that present themselves as close-ups of urban areas or aerial photographs of extra-terrestrial landscapes. The canvases are not only ambiguous in the way they bring together extremes of perception (from micro to macro), but also in the way the paint traces transform the painting into a contemporary sculpture. In Sanguine/Bloedrood, the harrowing simplicity of Basic Research contrasts with her conceptual work, but also with the baroque opulence of Nadia Naveau and Pieter Paul Rubens.

    Text: Hans Willemse
    Translations: Michael Meert

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