Highlight #30: Choice of Europe

Breezed from Germany, U.K. and France

Germany, Essen <PIERRE SOULAGES: LE NOIR>

15 January ~ 26 June 2016_Museum Folkwang

Pierre Soulages, born in Rodez, in southern France, has been producing his black painting since the 1970s. The monumental panels display lines inscribed deeply into the pastose paint surface. Liberating his style from centuries of Western decorative painting traditions and drawing from prehistoric cave art, Soulages’ work is a pure celebration of the very essence of painting: the primal instinct to create, and the spiritual power of lines and movements.

The lines and furrows give structure to the large-scale paintings. Horizontally, diagonally or vertically, they break through the black texture, and turn matt and glossy. He calls this radical expansion of pure black “Outrenoir(ultra-black).” The artist tentatively developed his distinctive use of the color black in his paintings. He uses his incomparable black to create a nuanced balance of light, and amplifies it into a powerful gesture. He has injected poetry into radical abstraction with paintings comprised of a single material, black paint. He sums up his investigations in a single sentence: “Don’t work with black but with the light that reflects it.”

<Peinture, 30 octobre 2015, 159×201cm>

2015 Acryl auf leinwand ⓒ VG-Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2016 Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Foto: Vincent Cunillere
<Peinture, 28 Aout 2015, 243×181cm>

2015 Acryl auf leinwand ⓒ VG-Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2016 Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve Foto: Vincent Cunillere
<Peintures, 29 Avril 2015, 162×362cm>

2015 Acryl auf leinwand ⓒ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2016 Courtesy Galerie Karste Greve Foto ⓒ Vincent Cunillere

U.K., London <PAINTING THE MODERN GARDEN: MONET TO MATISSE>

30 January ~ 40 April 2016_Royal Academy of Arts

Arguably the most important painter of gardens in the history of art, Claude Monet was also an avid horticulturist who cultivated gardens wherever he lived. As early as the 1860s, a symbiotic relationship developed between his gardening and painting, a relationship that can be traced from his early years in Sainte-Adresse to his final months in Giverny. A rich selection of documentary materials including horticultural books and journals, as well as receipts for purchases of plants and excerpts from letters, will be included in the exhibition. Highlights of the exhibition will include a magnificent selection of Monet’s Water Lily painting series, including the great Agapanthus Triptych (1916~1919).

Also, visitors can see the garden created by Edouard Manet, Mary Cassatt and other famous artists. The exhibition will be arranged thematically, leading visitors through the evolution of the garden theme, from Impressionist visions of light and atmosphere to retreat for reverie and dreams, sites for bold experimentation, sanctuaries of refuge and healing, and, ultimately, signifiers of a world restored to order-a paradise regained.

Claude Monet <Nympheas (Water lilies)> 1914-15

Oil on canvas 160.7×180.3cm Portland Art Museum, Oregon Museum Purchase: Helen Thurston Ayer Fund, 59.16
Photo (c) Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon
Wassily Kandinsky <Murnau The Garden II> 1910

Oil on cardboard 67×51cm Merzbacher Kunststiftung Photo (c) Merzbacher Kunststiftung
Auguste Renoir <Monet Painting in His Garden at Argenteuil> 1873

Oil on canvas 46.7×59.7cm Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT Bequest of Anne Parrish Titzell, 1957.614
Photo (c) Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT

France, Paris <DAIDO MORIYAMA: DAIDO TOKYO>

6 February ~ 5 June_Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain

Featuring a large selection of color photographs, Daido Tokyo sheds light on this lesser-known yet ubiquitous aspect of the artist’ photographic practice over the last two decades. Moriyama witnessed the dramatic changes that took place in Japan in the decades following World War II. In response, he sought to invent a new visual language to express the conflicting realities of a society caught between tradition and modernity. Moriyama’s works have frequently focused on the city of Tokyo. Defamiliarizing items from everyday life, he photographs faded posters, reflections in shop windows, odd-shaped pipes, and the faces of people passing in the street.

Rather than selecting and framing his images, he shoots freely without looking through the viewfinder, using his body more than his eyes to capture reality. Blurred and askew, the resultant photographs are characterized by haste, an “Snapshot Asthetic” avored by the artist. Breaking with the convention of the carefully composed image, Moriyama invents a powerful and remarkably expressive visual language that conveys the sense of a disordered urban reality. ■ with ARTINPOST

<Tokyo Color> 2008-2015

C-print 111.5×149cm / 149×111.5cm Courtesy of the artist / Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation
<Dog and Mesh Tights> 2014-2015

Slide show of 291 black-and-white photographs 25min Music by Toshihiro Oshima Video concept: Gerard Chiron Courtesy of the artist / Geysuyosha Limited / Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation
<Tokyo Color> 2008-2015

C-print 111.5×149cm / 149×111.5cm Courtesy of the artist / Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation