Annette Messager @ ARoS - Aarhus Art Museum - Désirs désordonnés / Disordered desires

Annette Messager

Désirs désordonnés / Disordered desires 

ARoS - Aarhus Art Museum

27 May - 22 October 2023

Annette Messager

Daily, 2015-2016

Installation view of the exhibition

Annette Messager, Comme si (as if) in

LaM, Lille Métropole Musée d'art moderne,

d'art contemporain et d'art brut, France 

Courtesy the artist & Marian Goodman Gallery

Photograph: N. Dewitte / LaM

Annette Messager

Daily, 2015-2016 (detail)

Installation view of the exhibition

Annette Messager, Comme si (as if) in

LaM, Lille Métropole Musée d'art moderne,

d'art contemporain et d'art brut, France 

Courtesy the artist & Marian Goodman Gallery

Photograph: N. Dewitte / LaM

ARoS presents “Désirs désordonnés” (Disordered Desires) by internationally celebrated French artist, Annette Messager. The exhibition highlights major works and previously unseen projects. This is the premiere presentation of Annette Messager in Denmark. “Désirs désordonnés” offers the opportunity to appreciate Annette Messager's unique surrealist and feminist aesthetic.

Annette Messager (b. 1943, Berck-sur-mer, France), working since the beginning of the 1970 ́s, has been hailed as one the most important and influential artists of her generation. She gained international recognition during the 1980’s, showing in major Biennale surveys and international exhibitions. Her works combine a feminist sensibility with a strong link to the strategies and methodologies of Surrealism.

Annette Messager works with ordinary materials to create surreal assemblages staged in a theatrical way. Deliberately subjective, Annette Messager uses reminiscence and memory as a vehicle for inspiration. The use of ‘found objects’, assemblage and intuitive drawing in her artistic approach allows her to create works which refer to influences as varied as Surrealism, Dada, the grotesque, absurd, and the phantasmagoric.

Deeply free, Annette Messager is reluctant to be stuck with any kind of category, and although a part of her work explores the role of female artists and the status of women in contemporary society, her Oeuvre more widely touches on political and complex themes such as gender, identity, freedom and various issues raised by our society that she manages to transform into fables and fictions, blurring the boundaries between reality and imaginary.

Annette Messager 

Continent noir, 2018-2021

Installation view of the exhibition

Annette Messager, Comme si (as if) in

LaM, Lille Métropole Musée d'art moderne,

d'art contemporain et d'art brut, France 

Courtesy the artist & Marian Goodman Gallery

Photograph: N. Dewitte / LaM

Annette Messager 

Dessus-Dessous, 2019 

Installation view of the exhibition

Annette Messager, Comme si (as if) in

LaM, Lille Métropole Musée d'art moderne,

d'art contemporain et d'art brut, France 

Courtesy the artist & Marian Goodman Gallery

Photograph: N. Dewitte / LaM

Annette Messager has developed a seemingly personal world in which she takes on a range of identities: Collector, Trickster and Practical Woman among others. This provides her the freedom and distance to examine multiple aspects and to unravel the clichés traditionally associated with the dual status of being both a woman and an artist. As a creator of chimeras, lover of word games and hawker of dreams, Annette Messager delights in unnerving the public by immersing them in a world marked by carnival and fairy tales, where familiar things such as everyday objects, soft toys, cloths, photographs of parts of human body, etc. take on supernatural powers.

In “Désirs désordonnés” Annette Messager presents these imaginary narratives through installation, sculptures, drawings, and photos, which merge to offer a diverse, dynamic and rich experience for the viewer.

Rebecca Matthews, director of ARoS, says:

"Messager creates encounters that explore the grotesque, gothic and folkloric. In her works she exaggerates, diminishes and refashions ideas that have been stable, solid, and authoritative to provoke an alternative view from the position of the woman. Visiting “Désirs désordonnés”, the viewer will receive a unique insight into Messager’s aesthetic, which in this year of ARoS surrealisms, will expand the audience’s appreciation for new knowledge, curiosity and inspiration fashioned from the mind of the artist.”

Annette Messager

Installation view of the exhibition

Annette Messager, Comme si (as if) in

LaM, Lille Métropole Musée d'art moderne,

d'art contemporain et d'art brut, France 

Courtesy the artist & Marian Goodman Gallery

Photograph: N. Dewitte / LaM

Annette Messager

Installation view of the exhibition

Annette Messager, Comme si (as if) in

LaM, Lille Métropole Musée d'art moderne,

d'art contemporain et d'art brut, France 

Courtesy the artist & Marian Goodman Gallery

Photograph: N. Dewitte / LaM

Annette Messager: Celebrated artist

Annette Messager is celebrated in her home country, France. She was recently awarded the Légion d’honneur the most esteemed cultural acknowledgment conferred by the French Head of State. She was awarded the Praemium Imperiale in 2016 by the Japan Art Association in the scupture category for work achievement; and in 2005 at the 51st Venice Biennale she was awarded the Golden Lion of the best national presentation for her installation “Casino” in the French pavilion.

Annette Messager is inspired by female artists such as Louise Nevelson, Eva Hesse, and Louise Bourgeois as well as cinema and literature. Her work often challenges the traditional boundaries between art and life, gender roles and social norms. She has created a style and aesthetic, where she combines objects and photographs with textiles, embroidery and sewing. Although Messager has experimented a wide range of technics and mediums like found objects, photography, textile, embroidery and sewing she has created a singular style and unique aesthetic which she can stretch as easily from large scale immersive installation to smaller and intimate works. Breaking the limits, she explores spaces in every single dimension possible using suspension, walls, and floor as possibilities.

Ellen Langvold, curator at ARoS says:

“Working with a renowned artist like Annette Messager is a great privilege. Few artists challenge their audiences like Messager, and few have had a more liberating influence on younger generations of artists. “Désirs désordonnés” is Messager’s first major survey exhibition in Denmark and will provide an insight into her captivating, intriguing and compelling universe. Specially conceived by the artist, the exhibition will give pride of place to drawing, a technique dear to her heart, with a selection of seventy-six acrylic acrylic paint - drawings from the series Tête-à-tête (2019-2020). Among her recent works, Annette Messager will also present Dessus-Dessous (2019) an installation that revisits the work she created for the French Pavilion at the 2005 Venice Biennale.”

The exhibition is made possible in collaboration with LaM - Lille Métropole Musée d'art moderne, d'art contemporain et d'art brut, Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France, Annette Messager and Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris.

ARoS Aarhus Art Museum

Aros Allé 2, 8000 Aarhus C

www.aros.dk

Julian Schnabel @ ARoS Aarhus Art Museum - Aktion Paintings 1985 - 2017

Julian Schnabel - Aktion Paintings 1985 - 2017
ARoS Aarhus Art Museum
Through 3 March 2019 

Portrait of Julian Schnabel 

Photo: Louise Kugelberg

ARoS presents 40 paintings from 1985 to 2017, entitled Aktion Paintings by American painter Julian Schnabel. This is the largest exhibition to date in the Scandinavian countries of Julian Schnabel’s work. Many of the artworks is from Julian Schnabel’ own collection and have never been exhibited publicly. Julian Schnabel is seen as one of the leading protagonists of painting in the last half of the 20th century and still influences painting today. 

Julian Schnabel

Anno Domini, 1990 

Oil on white tarpaulin, 670,6 x 670,6 cm

Courtesy the artist, Photo from Julian Schnabel Archive, 1990

Julian Schnabel

Installation photo Aktions Paintings

Photo: Anders Sune Berg

ARoS has put in more than two years of work to make this exhibition possible, closely collaborating with the artist and designed by interior architect Louise Kugelberg. Exploring new possibilities and stepping out of our comfort zone is an inherent part of the spirit of ARoS. Consequently, we have enjoyed a great deal of surprises in the development of this exhibition and he has created a structure that will enlighten the museum guests the moment they enter his universe, says museum director Erlend G. Høyersten, ARoS. 

Julian Schnabel 

A Carrot is a Diamond for a Rabbit, 1990

Oil on tarpaulin, 472,4 x 721,4 cm

Courtesy the artist, Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

JULIAN SCHNABEL: ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1951, Julian Schnabel today divides his time between New York City and Montauk, Long Island. The pivotal role he played in the return of figurative and narrative painting in the late 1970s turned him into its most prominent figure. Throughout his career Schnabel has been exploring the boundaries of painting, and he is known for his constant experimentation with surfaces, scale, materials and great gesture, not only the physical gesture, but the gesture of idea.

Three of the works, at the entrance of the exhibition were made for the Maison Carrée in Nîmes, France in 1990 and resided there for four years. Schnabel has made works for unusual spaces that speak to architecture, most recently 6 - 6 x 6-meter paintings that were installed outside in the courtyard of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco for five months by Max Hollein, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Julian Schnabel’s work has been presented in many of the world’s most preeminent museums, and is held in major collections, such as the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Tate, London; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid and Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Julian Schnabel

Last Attempt at Attracting Butterflies, 1994 

Oil on canvas, 411,5 x 375,9 cm 

Private collection

Photo: Ken Cohen Photography

Julian Schnabel

Hat Full of Rain, 1996 

Oil and marker on tarpaulin

Courtesy the artist

Photo from Julian Schnabel Archive 1996

JULIAN SCHNABEL: AN OSCAR-NOMINATED PAINTER

In 1996 Julian Schnabel wrote and directed the movie Basquiat about New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Julian Schnabel’s second film, Before Night Falls, won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Coppa Volpi for best actor to Javier Bardem in 2000 at the Venice Film Festival. In 2007 Julian Schnabel directed his third film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Julian Schnabel received the prize for best director at Cannes Film Festival and best director at the Golden Globe Awards, where the film also won the award for Best Foreign Language Film. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was nominated for four Oscars. Julian Schnabel’s latest film, At Eternity’s Gate, about Vincent van Gogh premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2018, where Willem Dafoe won the Coppa Volpi for best actor and Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen gave a riveting performance as the priest responsible for letting Vincent van Gogh out of the asylum.

Julian Schnabel

Big Girl Painting, 2013 

Oil on canvas, 414 x 386,1 cm

Private collection

Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Julian Schnabel  

Rose Painting (Near Van Gogh's Grave) VIII, 2016

Oil, plates and bondo on wood, 182,9 x 152,4 cm 

Private collection

Photo by Daniel Martinek Pho

CATALOGUE

Director of l’Insitut d’historie de l’art in Paris Eric de Chassey, contributes his profound knowledge of Julian Schnabel’s painting as well as artists Laurie Anderson’s poetic description of her personal relationship with the artist. The catalogue begins with a foreword by museum director Erlend G. Høyersten and Rasmus Stenbakken. The exhibition designer Louise Kugelberg contributed extensively to the catalogue that ARoS publish in connection with the exhibition.

The exhibition is curated and designed by Julian Schnabel and Louise Kugelberg.

Director Erlend G. Høyersten and ARoS wishes to thank Jens-Peter Brask for the collaboration and for introducing the idea of making a Julian Schnabel exhibition.  

For more about Julian Schnabel visit www.julianschnabel.com

AROS Aarhus Kunstmuseum
ARoS Aarhus Art Museum
AROS ALLÉ 2, DK-8000 AARHUS C
www.aros.dk

Tony Matelli at ARoS, Denmark

Tony Matelli - A HUMAN ECHO
ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, Denmark
31 August - 30 December 2012

ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum presents the New York artist Tony Matelli (b. 1971) with the exhibition Tony Matelli – A HUMAN ECHO. Visitors to ARoS have for several years been able to experience Tony Matelli's art, as he has occupied a prominent place in the museum's collection of contemporary art with his controversial installation Fucked (Couple), 2005 – the devastated couple who have got a Steinway grand piano on their heads.

The exhibition Tony Matelli – A HUMAN ECHO displays Matelli's artistic oeuvre and his special imagery in its full glory. It presents works from the latest 15 years of Matelli's career and focus particularly on his artistic development, which has moved from macabre self-portraits created of meat and vegetables via absurd presentations of monkey and Man to subdued interpretations of mankind's traces and litter. All wrapped up in the artist's characteristic combination of creepiness and sophisticated humour

FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCULPTURE TRADITION

With his realistic figures, Tony Matelli is a principal exponent of the further development of the American sculpture tradition. Starting out especially from the Western European history of art and its existential and philosophical thematic complexes, Matelli reinterprets the condition of human life – not least in his series of modern vanitas motifs, which in their interplay of humour and horror remind us that the days of mankind are counted.

MAN AND MONKEY

In Tony Matelli's earlier career it is the human body – or the monkey as a symbol of mankind – that is interpreted and reproduced in various contexts. In his most recent installations, however, both mankind and animal have abandoned the stage and left behind only fleeting traces in the form of impressions in the dust, empty beer cans or cigarette ends.

Nevertheless, the title of the exhibition – Tony Matelli – A HUMAN ECHO – emphasises that it is mankind – present or absent – that constitutes the essential starting point for Matelli's artistic universe. This creates a link between Matelli and large areas of the permanent collection in ARoS that be activated via the app installed in the exhibition to iPhones and iPads.

THE IMPERFECT HUMAN BEING

In the realm of Tony Matelli figures, the order of the day is determined by the imperfect human being. The artist's striking use of sarcasm and inverted ideals of beauty puncture mankind's lofty understanding of itself and bring a smile to the lips. This relationship is clearly expressed in works such as the sculpture Total Torpor, Mad Malaise, 2003, in which a naked, deformed male figure ravaged by boils smiles condescendingly to us from his podium. The work reeks of irony with Matelli asking us to take a critical look at ourselves, our habits and the culture around us.

In the sensational installation Old Enemy. New Victim, 2007, Tony Matelli reveals the disturbing aspects of mankind and human society. Here, we come across the rare sight of a hopelessly obese gorilla that has been overpowered by two starving chimpanzees.  The statement implicit in this work, which turns our traditional concept of our surroundings upside down, is typical of Matelli, who in several of his installations takes the theme of the unpredictability contained in mankind's struggle for power both physical and psychological.

THE VIEWER'S OWN BODY

Whereas in the introductory section of the exhibition Tony Matelli – A HUMAN ECHO we view the artist's detailed interpretations of the human body and the monkey, it is in the final part of the gallery that the viewer's own body is in the firing line.

Here we see a series of dusty mirrors that catch our eye and retain our own body as the central feature in the art. In the early mirror works the actual motif is a play on words or a pastime in the form of games of noughts and crosses, while in the most recent mirrors there is a brief suggestion of a human hand, shoulder or finger drawing a quick line in the dust. The message remains the same, however: "Mankind has been here".

Tony Matelli's world of images is filled with recognisable motifs: the bunch of flowers, the human body, money and mirror. But we are constantly being filled with doubt as to what is going on when things are transposed and Tony Matelli nvites us in behind the polished facade of humanity.

CATALOGUE AND APP

In connection with Tony Matelli's solo exhibition, ARoS in collaboration with the international publishers Walter König Books, London, is to publish a 298-page, richly illustrated catalogue of the exhibition. This publication contains both Danish and foreign contributions – including a lengthy interview with Matelli.

As a new initiative in communication, ARoS has developed an app for iPhones and iPads relating to the exhibition Tony Matelli – A HUMAN ECHO. The app can be downloaded free of charge and can lead to a series of alternative experiences of Matelli's art and the exhibition in ARoS.  It is possible to borrow an iPad and headphones at the information desk in the museum.

TONY MATELLI

Tony Matelli was born in Chicago in 1971.

Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Over the last ten years, Tony Matelli has had a large number of solo and group exhibitions at venues such as the Venice Biennale, the Palais de Tokyo, Paris and the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin.

Tony Matelli is represented in permanent collections all over the world, including: FLAG Art Foundation, New York, National Center of Contemporary Art, Moskva, Fundacion la Caixa, Madrid, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, ARoS

Responsible for the exhibition Tony Matelli – A HUMAN ECHO: Pernille Taagaard Dinesen

ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum
Special Exhibition Gallery, Level 1
Aros Allé 2 - 8000 Århus C - Denmark
www.aros.dk