Peter Doig @ Serpentine, London - 'House of Music' Exhibition

Peter Doig: House of Music

Serpentine, London

10 October 2025 – 8 February 2026

Peter Doig 

Maracas, 2002-2008

Oil on canvas, 290 x 190 cm 

© Peter Doig. All Rights Reserved

Peter Doig 

Painting for Wall Painters (Prosperity P.o.S.), 2010–2012

Distemper on linen, 240 x 360 cm 

© Peter Doig. All Rights Reserved 

Peter Doig 

Fall in New York (Central Park), 2002–2012 

Oil on linen, 120.5 x 98 cm 

© Peter Doig. All Rights Reserved 

Serpentine presents House of Music, a new project by one of today’s leading British artists: Peter Doig. The exhibition marks a return to Serpentine South for Peter Doig who first exhibited at the gallery in 1991 as a finalist in the Barclays Young Artist Award.

Accompanying Doig’s paintings with sound for the first time, the exhibition will highlight the significance of other disciplines to the artist’s practice, including music and film, alongside the importance of sites of communal gathering and creative exchange.

 

Envisaged as a multi-sensory environment, visitors are invited to pause and linger as they look and listen. House of Music will transform the gallery into a listening space, bringing together recent paintings by Doig and sound broadcast through two sets of rare, restored analogue speakers, originally designed for cinemas and large auditoriums. Music selected by the artist, from his substantial archive of vinyl records and cassette tapes accumulated over decades, will play through a set of ‘high fidelity’ 1950s wooden Klangfilm Euronor speakers.

Peter Doig said: “Music has often influenced my paintings. Songs can be very visual. I’m interested in what they conjure, and I’ve tried over the years to make paintings that are imagistic and atmospheric in the way music can be. Music, being an invisible art form, is open to interpretation within the mind’s eye, and reflections from the mind’s eye are often what I’m attempting to depict in my work. Many visual artists have a connection to music, whether as listeners while working or as creators. I’m excited by the idea of inviting people to share music they love, or perhaps music they’ve made themselves.”

 

Bettina Korek, CEO and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine said: “We are pleased to present House of Music, a new project by Peter Doig. Best known for his painting, Doig’s deep engagement with music and cinema is less widely known. Building on his earlier presentation STUDIOFILMCLUB, this exhibition invites audiences to explore these facets of his practice. House of Music weaves new and recent paintings with immersive sound installations, transforming the gallery into a shared, multisensory space. At its core is a fluid exchange between disciplines, an approach integral to Serpentine’s programme. Part of our ongoing series that reveals artists through unexpected lenses, this show offers a fresh encounter with Doig’s work. We look forward to welcoming him and his collaborators as they bring the space to life with their vinyl collection.”

Each painting in the exhibition engages with music in a different way: Painting for Wall Painters (Prosperity P.o.S.), 2010–2012, Music of the Future, 2002–2007, Maracas, 2002–2008 and Speaker/Girl, 2015, honour the different spaces and ways that music is experienced. Other works portray musicians performing (including Embah in Paris, 2017; Shadow, 2019) and people dancing or listening to music (Fall in New York (Central Park), 2002–2012; 2 Girls, 2017). Many of the works were created during Doig’s years in Trinidad (2002–21), a period that deepened his relationship with music through sound system culture and cinema. Blending personal memory, found photographs, and imagined scenes, these paintings are shaped by the wider cultural context of Trinidad.

At the centre of the exhibition is an original Western Electric / Bell Labs sound system, produced in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Developed to respond to the demands of modern movie sound, this extremely rare ‘loud speaking telephone’ consists of valve amplifiers and mains-energised field-coil loudspeakers, which were designed specifically to herald in the new era of ‘talking movies’. These speakers were salvaged from derelict cinemas across the UK by Laurence Passera, with whom Peter Doig has collaborated closely on this project. Laurence Passera is a London-based expert and devoted enthusiast of cinematic sound systems. His study of ‘class A triode’ sound technology ultimately led him to the early pioneering cinematic sound systems. The speakers provide a distinctive listening experience, thanks to the technical excellence of their design, which positions them as the forebears of modern high-end audio. Peter Doig says: “I invited Laurence to be part of the exhibition because of his long-running project to rescue and restore Western Electric sound systems. His labour has resulted in one of the most important systems of its kind in the world. This has been hidden away the studio in Silvertown, only to be heard by a select few, up until now.”

 

On the walls that surround the sound system are three large-scale paintings depicting lions roaming freely through Port of Spain, Trinidad. They reference the Lion of Judah, a recurring figure in Rastafari imagery across mural paintings in Port of Spain, a symbol of pride, resistance, and spiritual force. Doig has returned to this motif in his work since 2015, folding it into a larger interest in collective identity and iconography.

 

The title House of Music, refers to lyrics of the 2011 song Dat Soca Boat by Trinidadian calypsonian musician Shadow, who Doig admires and has depicted in his paintings over the years. A portrait of the musician in his iconic skeleton suit, Shadow, 2019, is also included in the exhibition.

On Sundays, the space will be activated by Sound Service, a series of live, in-person listening sessions. Musicians and artists including Nihal El Aasar, Olukemi Lijadu, Ed Ruscha, Samuel Strang and Duval Timothy, will play a special selection of tracks from their music collections on the analogue systems.

Sound Service is imagined as an integral component of the project that aims to expand the registers of experience in House of Music, foster dialogues through the act of shared listening, and construct a sonic landscape of London. These informal residencies are intended to extend the themes of the exhibition’s ideas: sound as memory, shared listening as gathering, the speaker as both sculpture and conduit.

 

Sound Service evenings will invite special guests to share their selected tracks and audio samples responding to one another in new and unexpected acoustic exchanges in front of a live audience. Participants will include Dennis Bovell, Lizzi Bougatsos, Brian Eno, Andrew Hale, Linton Kwesi Johnson and more to be announced.

 

A publication will accompany the exhibition, featuring a newly commissioned text by Michael Bracewell exploring the intersection of music and visual arts; a short history of the development of sound systems for theatres by Laurence Passera; poems by Linton Kwesi Johnson and Derek Walcott and an in-depth interview between the artist and Serpentine’s Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist. The publication will also feature reproductions of paintings alongside archival images and engineering diagrams of the speakers included in the show. Designed by the Paris-based studio Faye and Gina, this publication will echo the design of a 12-inch record cover in format.

 

Peter Doig: House of Music is curated in close collaboration with the artist by Natalia Grabowska, Curator at Large, Architecture and Site-Specific Projects with Lizzie Carey-Thomas, Director of Programmes and Chief Curator, Alexa Chow, Assistant Exhibitions Curator and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director. The live programme is co-curated with Kostas Stasinopoulos.  

SERPENTINE GALLERIES, LONDON

www.serpentinegalleries.org

Circa 1995: New Figuration in New York @ David Zwirner, New York - John Currin, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, Chris Ofili, Laura Owens, Elizabeth Peyton, Luc Tuymans, Lisa Yuskavage

Circa 1995: 

New Figuration in New York 

David Zwirner, New York

May 7 – July 17, 2025 

MARLENE DUMAS

The Conspiracy, 1994 

Private Collection.

© Marlene Dumas. Courtesy David Zwirner 

David Zwirner presents Circa 1995: New Figuration in New York at the gallery’s 537 West 20th Street location in New York. The exhibition features eight generation-defining artists who played a central role in the resurgence and expansion of figurative painting during the 1990s: John Currin, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, Chris Ofili, Laura Owens, Elizabeth Peyton, Luc Tuymans, and Lisa Yuskavage.

By the early 1990s, as photography, film, video, and installation art were taking center stage, painting (and figurative painting in particular) was prematurely dismissed by some as having exhausted its possibilities and contemporary relevance. The artists in this exhibition challenged this notion. Looking to some of the medium’s classic tropes, genres, and techniques while also introducing new subjects, themes, and ideas, these artists redefined what painting could be: their incisive approaches to figuration not only spoke to the moment but also laid the groundwork for subsequent generations of painters. These influential artists have moreover continued to remain uniquely relevant in their ongoing work.

While working in different locations and contexts in the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United States, each of these artists showed in New York for the first time in the early to mid-1990s, around the time David Zwirner opened in SoHo in 1993. The works on view here are drawn from key solo shows, including several that were presented at the artists’ respective New York galleries (such as Andrea Rosen Gallery, Gavin Brown’s enterprise, Jack Tilton Gallery, and Marianne Boesky Gallery), and point to career-expanding presentations, such as Documenta 9 (1992); Projects 60: John Currin, Elizabeth Peyton, Luc Tuymans (1997), at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the traveling exhibition Sensation (1997–2000), among other important shows from the decade that brought these artists and their radically original work to the forefront. 

Known for his academically rendered canvases and provocative subject matter, American artist JOHN CURRIN (b. 1962) draws on art-historical tropes and genres such as portraiture, still life, history painting, and mythology, giving them a distinctly contemporary appearance. As art historian Norman Bryson remarks, Currin’s figurative works, which are inspired by traditional portraits as well as pinups, pornography, B movies, and women’s magazines, “swerve between attraction and repulsion, pleasure and guilt, joy and shame.” [1] Included in this exhibition are works that debuted in Currin’s critically lauded 1994 and 1997 solo exhibitions at Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, such as The Cripple and The Bra Shop (both 1997) as well as Ann-Charlotte (1996), which was in the Projects 60 show at The Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1997. That presentation, curated by Laura Hoptman, included John Currin, Elizabeth Peyton, and Luc Tuymans and signified the resurgence of figurative painting in contemporary art that had been occurring throughout the 1990s.

[1] Norman Bryson, “Maudit: John Currin and Morphology,” in Rose Dergan and Kara Vander Weg, eds., John Currin (New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2006), p. 30.

PETER DOIG’s (b. 1959) atmospheric compositions focus predominantly on the figure and landscape. Influenced by his childhood in Trinidad and Canada, his paintings, drawings, and watercolors capture what appear to be familiar moments of tranquility, where abstract and uncanny elements found on the periphery of the urban and natural worlds appear with the dreamlike quality of memory. Referencing a range of art-historical precedents, Doig sources imagery from an archive of materials that includes films, newspapers, album artwork, postcards, and personal photographs. Circa 1995 includes Jetty (1994), which debuted in Doig’s first solo show in New York, at Gavin Brown’s enterprise in 1994, the year Brown opened his eponymous gallery west of SoHo, and which was painted the same year the artist was nominated for the Turner Prize, as well as his Briey (Concrete Cabin) (1994–1996), a canvas from the significant series based on Le Corbusier’s iconic modernist Unité d’Habitation apartment block in Briey-en-Forêt, France.

MARLENE DUMAS (b. 1953) has continuously probed the complexities of identity and representation in her work. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1953, Dumas moved to Amsterdam in 1976, where she has since lived and worked. Her paintings and drawings, frequently devoted to depictions of the human form, typically reference a vast archive of source imagery collected by the artist, including art-historical materials, mass media images, and personal snapshots of friends and family. Gestural, fluid, and frequently spectral, Dumas’s works reframe and recontextualize her subjects, exploring the ambiguous and shifting boundaries between public and private selves. Having exhibited widely in Europe since the late 1970s, Marlene Dumas came to broad international attention by the early 1990s with her participation in significant group show such as Documenta 9 (1992), and solo museum presentations, including ones at the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (which traveled to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia) (1992–1994). On view in Circa 1995: New Figuration in New York is a painting by the artist that appeared in her 1994 solo show Not From Here at Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, as well as two other significant paintings from the period.

British artist CHIS OFILI’s (b. 1968) atmospheric, enigmatic paintings investigate the intersection of desire, identity, and representation. Portraying characters from a range of aesthetic and cultural sources through a kaleidoscopic visual mode that bridges abstraction and figuration, his works serve as sites for journeys of creative transformation. On view in Circa 1995 are three of Ofili’s iconic dung paintings, which garnered him both critical acclaim and notoriety during the 1990s. These multilayered paintings, playfully bedecked with resin, glitter, and collage, rest on balls of elephant dung. Among those in the show are Afrodizzia (1996), which presents dazzling, psychedelic patterns of collage and color with balls of dung on its layered surface. Interspersed throughout the composition are magazine cutouts of iconic Black cultural figures. The work was included in the touring exhibition Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection—a show that made international headlines in 1999 when it traveled to the Brooklyn Museum, New York, where The Holy Virgin Mary (1996; collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York), another elephant dung painting by Chis Ofili (not in the present exhibition), was displayed.

Los Angeles–based artist LAURA OWENS’s (b. 1970) experimental approach to painting challenges its material and conceptual limits. Her multilayered works combine diverse interests in folk art, comics, and wallpaper patterns with a broad range of text sources, such as the alphabet and printed media like the Los Angeles Times. Laura Owens incorporates these references into a variety of techniques and media—from traditional oil painting to silkscreening and needlework. Her inventive compositions achieve a formal unity while resisting straightforward analysis, renewing the medium of painting by questioning and exploring its master narratives. Owens’s work often takes the exhibition space into account, indicating the artist’s awareness of the relationship between the object and the viewer. Exhibited in this exhibition are works from Owens’s breakout solo shows from the late 1990s. As critic Roberta Smith noted, reviewing Laura Owens’s 1998 solo exhibition at Gavin Brown’s enterprise, “What is beautiful is also funny. The message here is that the medium of painting, which remains above all a surface to be engagingly animated, contains quite a bit of uncharted territory and that the old dog of formalism, unfettered by pure abstraction, can learn all sorts of new tricks.” [2]

[2] Roberta Smith, “Art in Review: Laura Owens,” New York Times, November 6, 1998.

ELIZABETH PEYTON (b. 1965) creates paintings and works on paper that attest to the psychical and emotional depths of her chosen subjects. Throughout her career, whether depicting individuals from historical or contemporary eras, Elizabeth Peyton has been driven by an openness and curiosity that seeks to approach and understand her subjects, and, often, their creative practices. As curator Donatien Grau observes: “Her desire is one for perfection: she makes her paintings into perfect images of life, which are so beautiful and draw you in. But within that desire you can feel the longing: the longing for a life that is gone, or that is going to be gone. You can feel the desire to know—truly know—those individuals.” [3] The exhibition includes paintings that depict the musicians Kurt Cobain and Liam Gallagher, both important recurring subjects in Peyton’s work during the 1990s, as well as the gallerist Martin McGeown, who staged an exhibition of her work in London in 1995 at his experimental gallery Cabinet.

[3] Donatien Grau, “Fragments on Elizabeth Peyton,” in CLOSE-UP: Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Lotte Laserstein, Frida Kahlo, Alice Neel, Marlene Dumas, Cindy Sherman, Elizabeth Peyton. Exh. cat. (Basel: Fondation Beyeler, 2021), p. 224.

Belgian artist LUC TUYSMANS’s (b. 1958) deeply resonant compositions insist on the power of images to simultaneously reveal and withhold meaning. Often rendered in a muted palette, the artist’s canvases are based on preexisting imagery from a range of historical, cultural, and popular-media sources. Their quiet and restrained appearance, however, belies an underlying moral complexity that engages equally with questions of history and its representation as with quotidian subject matter. In Circa 1995 are key paintings by Luc Tuymans, including works which debuted in the artist’s 1996 show The Heritage at David Zwirner. Stemming from the artist’s interest in picturing the prevailing mood of uncertainty and loss that he perceived in the United States following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the exhibition presented works that incorporated a range of recognizable symbols of American life and received critical acclaim, including from Peter Schjeldahl, who noted in his Village Voice review: “When I’m looking at Tuymans’s work, it seems to me absurd that our culture doesn’t embrace painting normally and avidly, as an enthusiastic matter of course.” [4] 

[4] Peter Schjeldahl, “Bad Thoughts: Luc Tuymans,” Village Voice, October 8, 1996, p. 86.

In her work, American artist LISA YUSKAVAGE (b. 1962) affirms the singularity of the medium of painting while challenging conventional understandings of genres and viewership. Her rich cast of characters and their varied attributes are layered within compositions built of both representational and abstract elements in which color and light are the primary vehicles of meaning. Several of Yuskavage’s standout paintings from the 1990s are presented in the exhibition, including works from her Bad Babies series (1991–1992), which the artist has described as “portraits of beings in color” and feature individual female figures seen from the knees up set against jewel-tone monochromatic fields of color. The Bad Babies, a breakthrough series of four works, was first shown together in Yuskavage’s second solo exhibition in New York, at Elizabeth Koury in 1993. Likewise, Big Little Laura (1998), another seminal painting from this decade, was first shown in New York in 1998 at Marianne Boesky Gallery. As Peter Schjeldahl wrote, again in The Village Voice, in praise of the works in that exhibition, “Remember when contemporary art was an adventure? With the likes of Yuskavage around, it is adventurous again.” [5]

[5] Peter Schjeldahl, “Purple Nipple,” Village Voice, September 29, 1998, p. 138.

DAVID ZWIRNER 

537 West 20th Street, New York City 

www.davidzwirner.com

Peter Doig, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen / Bâle

Peter Doig

Fondation Beyeler, Riehen / Bâle

Jusqu'au 22 mars 2015

Peter Doig est chez lui dans de nombreux univers. Né à Edimbourg en 1959, il n’avait que deux ans quand sa famille est partie pour Trinidad avant de déménager une nouvelle fois cinq ans plus tard, au Canada, cette fois. Aujourd’hui, Doig partage sa vie entre Trinidad, Londres et New York, tout en enseignant à la Kunstakademie de Düsseldorf. C’est un artiste extrêmement polyvalent, qui maîtrise différentes techniques et multiplie les expériences, notamment dans son oeuvre gravée. Ses toiles, généralement de grand format, séduisent par la densité de leur atmosphère en même temps que par l’intensité de leurs couleurs et de leur luminosité. Peu d’artistes contemporains savent aussi bien que Peter Doig jeter un pont entre l’art moderne et l’art contemporain tout en anticipant l’avenir.

Peter Doig est particulièrement à l’écoute des sensibilités de notre monde, qu’il exprime à travers son art. Dans ses tableaux, le temps paraît s’écouler à un autre rythme que dans la vie réelle, il semble se dérouler plus lentement, s’arrêter même, se rapprochant ainsi du rêve, de l’hallucination, de la méditation ou des effets spéciaux du cinéma. Cette impression est encore renforcée par les différents états de fluidité qu’adopte sa peinture. De même, ce qui se passe dans les tableaux de Doig n’est pas facile à définir temporellement. Le rapport au présent s’estompe dans la déperdition de soi des personnages, dans le jeu des reflets dans l’eau et dans l’intemporalité de la nature.

Le plus souvent, les idées picturales de Peter Doig se rattachent à des fragments de notre présent : photographies de famille, coupures de presse, images de films. Ceux-ci donnent l’impulsion à des toiles qui réalisent un collage si habile d’éléments qu’il en résulte une composition cohérente et pleine de tension, se dérobant à toute tentative d’élucidation. Ses toiles, aux dimensions souvent imposantes, créent une impression à la fois familière et mystérieuse, tout en restant indécises, évoquant des séquences oniriques ou cinématographiques concentrées.

Les oeuvres de Peter Doig sont autant d’expéditions fantastiques dans un monde merveilleux. La nature qui s’y épanouit en couleurs somptueuses est peuplée de créatures étranges humains, figures de carnaval ou êtres fabuleux. Malgré cette beauté ensorcelante et cette mélancolie onirique, il ne s’agit pas ici de l’ébauche d’un Paradis. Partout se dissimulent des ombres et des abîmes, en même temps que la solitude, le lugubre, le danger, la peur et l’égarement qui menacent les individus dans leur prétendue idylle. Cet art associe étroitement réalité et absurde, et l’on y perçoit parfois le frémissement sous-jacent d’un souffle d’ironie typiquement britannique. La peinture aussi mystérieuse que magistrale de Peter Doig en fait l’un des artistes les plus intéressants de notre temps.

Peter Doig est parfaitement conscient de la grande tradition dans laquelle il s’inscrit : il se réfère à des peintres tels que Gustave Courbet, Edvard Munch, Pierre Bonnard, Francis Bacon et plus particulièrement encore Paul Gauguin, la représentation de paysages tropicaux n’étant pas le seul point commun qui le lie à ce dernier. La profonde connaissance qu’il a de cet héritage pictural se révèle notamment dans la composition de ses tableaux, le choix des couleurs ou ses techniques picturales. Ce qui n’empêche pas Doig d’être fermement ancré dans le présent.

L’exposition de la Fondation Beyeler présente un choix d’oeuvres réalisées par l’artiste entre 1989 et 2014. Cet aperçu de la création de Peter Doig n’est pas ordonné chronologiquement mais en fonction de centres d’intérêt, le traitement de la couleur, tout à la fois moyen esthétique et matériau, occupant en l’occurrence le premier plan.

Le parcours s’ouvre sur ses tableaux emblématiques et nostalgiques de mondes exotiques, dont les représentations de canoë constituent des illustrations exemplaires. Ses tableaux reproduisant une peinture murale et construits de manière géométrique et tectonique nous rappellent que peindre, c’est travailler avec la surface du fond pictural. Les oeuvres dominées par le traitement de la couleur blanche dépassent la représentation de scènes hivernales. Ce sont également des tentatives pour débattre avec sa propre existence, « pour comprendre ce que vivre dans son propre univers de représentation veut dire », comme l’a formulé Doig à propos de l’oeuvre centrale qu’est Blotter (1993). Le blanc, qui se pose tel un rideau sur un fond qui n’est que partiellement visible, fait l’effet d’une trame empêchant le spectateur de se repérer dans l’image.

Les très célèbres tableaux de la série Concrete Cabin de la première moitié des années 1990 constituent peut-être un des meilleurs regards rétrospectifs peints sur l’art moderne : le spectateur a l’impression d’observer à travers l’écran d’une forêt, autrement dit d’une structure naturelle, la structure technique de la modernité architecturale, l’« Unité d’Habitation » de Le Corbusier à Briey, en Lorraine.

Des représentations d’apparitions quasi spectrales, constituées de différentes couches de couleur diluée et dont l’effet est absolument monumental (Man Dressed as Bat, 2007), sont placées en vis-àvis de travaux plus récents, dont l’intensité chromatique est encore accrue. (Spearfishing, 2013). En outre, l’oeuvre gravée expérimentale de Doig est ici présentée pour la première fois dans le cadre d’une exposition. Ces créations revêtent une fonction majeure dans son processus de travail, dans la mesure où elles naissent souvent avant les peintures proprement dites. Doig teste dans ces estampes les différentes ambiances qu’il cherche à transmettre dans ses grands formats. Le tableau achevé constitue ainsi en quelque sorte le dernier état d’une estampe.

Peter Doig est un homme d’une infinie curiosité, qui associe ses souvenirs d’observations personnelles à des archives photographiques considérables comprenant aussi bien des scènes de tous les jours que des innovations esthétiques. Observations quotidiennes, archives iconographiques et expérience pratique à l’atelier : ces trois voies d’exploration se fondent dans l’art de Doig. Sa curiosité lui inspire d’étranges expériences visuelles : il recouvre ainsi des couleurs éclatantes de lasures sombres, noirâtres (Concrete Cabin, 1991/92) ou applique de fines couches blanches, qui assourdissent paradoxalement l’atmosphère générale de la toile (Ski Jacket, 1994).

Peter Doig est un observateur incroyablement concentré, et souvent ironique : en tant qu’auteur de ses inventions visuelles, il y occupe évidemment une position centrale. Ce qui ne l’empêche pas de se poser en même temps en spectateur étranger, en marge, ouvert aux effets de surprise que recèle la couleur diluée par des solvants ou épaissie en une pâte couvrante. Il suit le déplacement du centre optique, tout en le gouvernant : il accorde une attention égale au « caractère » d’une figure, aux dessins muraux décoratifs ou aux voiles lumineux végétaux et atmosphériques, qui prêtent à ses environnements picturaux des qualités tout à fait singulières.

Peter Doig remarque que la réaction sensorielle, instinctive même, à telle ou telle toile peut varier selon les personnes, car la contemplation d’une peinture est un processus complexe qui ne se limite pas à une action unique : « Dans les peintures – par opposition aux images, quoi que puisse être une image – il me semble que regarder, regarder à travers (« looking-through ») et mettre au point sont absolument essentiels [de la part du spectateur] » Le peintre souligne que ce qui compte pour lui, ce n’est pas « peindre quelque chose de figé mais représenter le mouvement de l’oeil. L’oeil ne voit jamais une “image immobile”. »

En raison de son aspect primaire de sa « matérialité » fondamentale, la sphère de sensation de la peinture s’étend au-delà de chaque image, et même au-delà des images technologiquement au point et diffusées à l’infini de notre temps. Après des milliers d’années d’histoire, la peinture conserve un lien originel avec toute la gamme des sentiments humains, de l’intelligence et de l’évolution de l’homme. Quant à nous, spectateurs, nous perdons le fil narratif en regardant ses oeuvres. Nous perdons notre place dans la culture, notre monde de significations secondaires, détournées, même si nous conservons les bases de l’association conceptuelle. Cette perte est un gain : nous gagnons l’accès à l’expérience originelle, quand bien même celle-ci continue à se dérober à notre connaissance.

Peter Doig réalise spécifiquement pour cette exposition et pour la Salle Renzo Piano de la Fondation Beyeler une peinture murale monumentale avec la collaboration de ses élèves. Elle repose sur House of Pictures (Carrera) de 2004, une oeuvre qui traite du thème de la vision ou ouvre des aperçus imaginés sur un monde imaginé avec, à l’arrière-plan, la silhouette de l’île prison de Carrera, située au large de Trinidad.

La Fondation Beyeler remercie Steven A. and Alexandra M. Cohen Foundation; David Teiger; LUMA Foundation; Max Kohler Stiftung; Tarbaca Indigo Foundation; Noam Gottesmann et Walter Haefner Stiftung pour leur généreuse contribution à l’exposition.

PETER DOIG

Catalogue de l'exposition

A l’occasion de l’exposition « Peter Doig », la Fondation Beyeler publie un catalogue en allemand et en anglais avec un tiré à part en français. L’édition commerciale est éditée par Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern. Ce catalogue abondamment illustré contient des contributions d’Ulf Küster et de Richard Shiff. 176 pages, 177 reproductions, Prix : 62.50 CHF (ISBN 978-3-7757-3868-2, édition anglaise : 978-3-7757-3869-9). 

FONDATION BEYELER

Baselstrasse 101, 4125 Riehen/Basel

www.fondationbeyeler.ch