Flowers in Art @ ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, Ishoj

FLOWERS IN ART 

ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj

Through 9 January 2022

A major exhibition at ARKEN tells the story of humankind’s fascination with the world of flowers. It examines how flowers in art reflect changing worldviews, outlooks on nature and social conditions – from the sensuous flower paintings of the nineteenth century to the eco-critical currents of contemporary art.

Marc Quinn 

Bhasat Wilap at Assi Ghat, 2010 

ARKEN Museum of Modern Art 

Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Andy Warhol  

Flowers, 1970 

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk 

Photo: Poul Buchard / Brøndum & Co.

J.L. Jensen  

Still Life with Flowers in an Antique Vase on a Marble Tabletop, 1834 Thorvaldsens Museum 

Photo: Thorvaldsens Museum

Flowers: we decorate our homes with them, use them as messengers to convey our innermost feelings and find healing in their scents and vitality. Flowers have always fascinated us and found their way into art. The exhibition Flowers in Art at ARKEN examines the many and varied relationships between flower and humankind expressed in art, as represented here by works by fifty-two international and Danish artists.

Says curator Dea Antonsen: ‘Flowers have been a central motif throughout art history, but in these climate-critical times the flower motif takes on new and poignant relevance as we have to rethink our relationship with nature. The exhibition brings together iconic, historical works and cutting-edge contemporary art, prompting new perspectives to emerge on how we humans “consume” flowers, stage ourselves by means of flowers and shape the world through our relationships with flowers’.

Tony Matelli

Arrangement, 2013

Courtesy the artist and Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm, Paris

Petrit Halilaj & Alvaro Urbano

7th of April 2020 (Quince), 2020

Courtesy the artists, ChertLüdde, kamel mennour and Travesia Cuatro

Kapwani Kiwanga  

The Marias, 2020 

Courtesy Centre d’art contemporaine d’Ivry – le Crédac, 

the artist and Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin. 

Photo: Marc Domage

As a motif in art, the flower has had several heydays. One of these was the nineteenth century’s soulful depictions of the beauty and vitality of flowers, which were part of an overall quest to understand the essence of nature and how the world worked. Flower motifs appear in new ways in art today, a time when scientists issue dire warnings about biodiversity crises and young people take to the streets for the sake of the climate. The romantic notion of unspoiled nature has been lost, and contemporary artists rethink the relationship between flower and humankind in works full of finely attuned sensibilities, humour and critique.

Alhed Larsen

Rhododendron, n.d. 

The Johannes Larsen Museum 

Photo: Jens Frederiksen

Hilma af Klint

On the Viewing of Flowers and Trees, 1922

The Hilma af Klint Foundation

Photo: Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden

Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg

The Clearing (Yellow, Purple and Rosehip Flower), 2015 (detail)

Courtesy the artists and Lisson Gallery

Photo: Jack Hems

The exhibition is in itself a diverse bouquet of sensory experiences, presenting many and varied works that depict flowers in such diverse media as painting, sculpture, photography, film and installation art. Bringing together illustrious artists of the past such as Odilon Redon, Claude Monet, J.L. Jensen and Hilma af Klint with modern and contemporary artists that include Marc Quinn, Andy Warhol, Melanie Bonajo, Tony Matelli and Petrit Halilaj & Alvaro Urbano, Kapwani Kiwanga, Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, the exhibition forges new connections between the historical roots of the flower motif and the critical agendas of contemporary art.

The exhibition is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated catalogue in Danish and English with contributions from, among others, Danish curator Dea Antonsen, American historian of science Lorraine Daston, Polish philosopher Monika Bakke, Danish art historian Rasmus Kjærboe and Austrian literary scholar Isabel Kranz.

ARKEN MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

Skovvej 100, 2635 Ishøj

www.arken.dk

Hyper Real @ National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Hyper Real
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Through 18 February 2018

Ron Mueck

Pregnant woman 2002

mixed media

252 x 78 x 72 cm

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Purchased with the assistance of Tony and Carol Berg, 2003, © Ron Mueck

Courtesy the artist, Anthony d’Offay, London and Hauser & Wirth

Carole A Feuerman

General’s twin 2009–11

resin, oil paint

61 x 38 x 20.5 cm

Galerie Hübner & Hübner

© Carole Feuerman

Image courtesy Institute for Cultural Exchange

At the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), visitors can expect to see a frozen sculpture made entirely of the artist’s blood, a transgenic creature giving birth amidst an infinite meadow and a virtual journey through a human skull floating in space amongst the incredible array of ultra-real sculpture and digital art on display.  

Hyper Real presents some of the world’s most incredible true-to-life sculpted forms alongside recent kinetic, biological and virtual creations. The exhibition investigates how artists are pushing the boundaries of the genre in their exploration of what constitutes the contemporary hyperreal.  

‘Presenting 32 artists and nearly 50 works, Hyper Real focuses on extraordinary talent from around the world,’ said Gerard Vaughan, NGA Director. ‘Most importantly, this exhibition highlights the exceptional contribution of Australian practitioners, including Patricia Piccinini, Sam Jinks, Ron Mueck, Shaun Gladwell, Jan Nelson, Stephen Birch and Ronnie van Hout.’ 

Installation view of George Segal’s works 

in the Hyper Real exhibition 

at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

‘This exhibition not only celebrates the astonishing material and technical feats that have made hyperrealism such a globally popular genre, but also explores the conceptual framework within which these works operate,’ said Jaklyn Babington, NGA Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. ‘Contemporary hyperrealism has pushed beyond static sculpture and into the digital realm. It is a shape-shifting genre, simultaneously traditional and innovative, familiar and provocative.’  

From the Renaissance to the present day, artists have long been fascinated with the human form. Hyperrealism momentarily tricks audiences into believing the artworks to be real and, in doing so, encourages viewers to reconsider what it means to be human. 

Maurizio Cattelan

Ave Maria 2007

polyurethane, paint, clothing, metal

74 x 13 cm x 65 cm

Private collection

Allen Jones

Refrigerator 2002

mixed media

188 x 84 x 37 cm

Private collection

Hyper Real delves into the nuances and complexities of the nude body. From the astonishing precision of replication in Paul McCarthy’s work, to the idealised beauty of John DeAndrea’s sculpted women and the oversized, emotionally exposed figures of Ron Mueck, the nude is central to hyperrealism. 

John DeAndrea

Lisa 2016

bronze, oil paint, hair

30.5 x 170.2 x 91.5 cm

Collection of John DeAndrea & Lorraine DeAndrea

Sam Jink’s technically spectacular oeuvre is exemplified by the NGA’s new commission The deposition 2017, an emotive exploration of the fragility of life and familial roles.   

Sam Jinks

Woman and child 2010

silicone, pigment, resin, silk, human hair

145 x 40 x 40 cm

Collection of the artist

© Sam Jinks. Image courtesy of the artist, Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney and 

Institute for Cultural Exchange, Tübingen

Zharko Basheski 

Ordinary man 2009–10

polyester resin, fiberglass, silicone, hair

220.0 x 180.0 x 85.0 cm

Collection of the artist

Humour and satire are used to deliver social and political commentary in Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s kinetic sculptures, while Maurizio Cattelan uses a playful juxtaposition to explore how the notions of power and evil are constructed. Hyper Real pushes the genre beyond today’s understanding of what is natural by encompassing the fantastic hybrid creatures of Patricia Piccinini. 

Sun Yuan and Peng Yu

Old people’s home 2007

fiberglass, silica gel, clothing, accessories, electric wheelchairs, dimensions variable

Collection of  Mr. Shi Lai Liu

Marc Sijan

Cornered 2011

polyester resin, oil paint

73.6 x 38.1 x 71.1 cm

Collection of the artist

© Marc Sijan

Image courtesy of the artist and Institute for Cultural Exchange, Tübingen

‘My work deals with ideas of transgenesis—beings that may be part-flower, part-boot, part-human – and looks upon them with compassion, love and acceptance,’ said artist Patricia Piccinini. ‘I question how far science and technology may take us, and what ethical questions arise around beings that are non-conformative and imperfect.’ 

Patricia Piccinini with her work The welcome guest

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Patricia Piccinini

Prone 2011

silicone, fibreglass, human hair, felt

230 x 60 x 60 cm

Collection of the artist 

Courtesy of the artist, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, 

Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne and 

Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco

Our computer-generated world is explored through Cao Fei’s pop culture offering, created in the game of Second Life. Tony Oursler’s digital talking head holds a mirror to the twenty-first century’s social media obsession; with anguish, Oursler’s projection tells the viewer it will die if it is not continually looked at and commented upon. 

Cao Fei

Live in RMB City 2009

single-channel video: 24:50 minutes, sound, colour

M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong

By donation

Shaun Gladwell

Orbital vanitas 2017

virtual reality: computer-generated animation, 6:00 minutes, sound, colour

Produced by BADFAITH

Courtesy the artist, Anna Schwartz Gallery and BADFAITH 

Creating sculptures that engage with surprising themes, the unbelievable craftsmanship of Tony Matelli’s Josh depicts a young man who appears to both levitate and fall, while Berlinde de Bruckyere’s Elie is presented in a state between agony and death, the human and inhuman.  

Tony Matelli 

Josh 2010

silicone, steel, hair, urethane, clothing

77 x 183 x 56 cm

Collection of the artist

Berlinde De Bruyckere

Elie 2009

wax, epoxy, cushion

38 x 154 x 115 cm

Fundació Sorigué, Lleida, Spain

Sculptures depicting popular figures such as Spider Man, clowns and pin-up girls reveal how culture and the media construct other hyperreal forms, while Ronnie van Hout’s doppelgängers and Marc Quinn’s self-portrait – created with litres of the artist’s frozen blood – provide disconcerting commentary on the infinite replication of humans in the future.  

Ronnie van Hout

Sitting figure I 2016

polyurethane, fibreglass, polystyrene, paint, clothing, acrylic, stainless steel

106 x 90 x 110 cm

Collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 2017

Courtesy of the artist and STATION, Melbourne

Shaun Gladwell’s virtual reality artwork is an immersive experience, a simulation that tricks us into believing that we are out of our mortal shells, and exploring deep space. VR offers a technological advancement of the human body. As technology is used to enhance our human capabilities we become another kind of hyperreal figure ourselves.  

The Russian collective AES+F present a high-definition 360° immersive video work evoking the aesthetic of daytime soap operas, with a provocative twist. In AES+F’s inverted world, the poor overthrow the rich, women torture men, youths punish their elders and animals usurp humans. 

AES+F

Inverso mundus 2015

seven-channel HD video installation: 38:20 minutes, sound, colour

Courtesy of the artists, MAMM, Anna Schwartz Gallery and Triumph Gallery

Hyper Real explores art, psychology, science, technology and philosophy through the very realness of its subject matter. Welcome to humanity amplified.  

Evan Penny

Self stretch 2012

silicone, pigment, hair, aluminium 

122 x 81 x 69 cm

Courtesy of the artist

Allen Jones

Refrigerator 2002

mixed media

188 x 84 x 37 cm

Private collection

Peter Land

Back to square one 2015

silicone, human hair, fabric, cardboard, leather, dimensions variable

Courtesy of Galleri Nicolai Wallner and Peter Land

HYPER REAL: ARTISTS 

AES+F (Russia)
Zharko Basheski (Macedonia)
Stephen Birch (Australia)
Maurizio Cattelan (Italy)
John De Andrea (USA)
Berlinde de Bruyckere (Belgium)
Keith Edmier (USA)
Cao Fei (China)
Carole A Feuerman (USA)
Daniel Firman (France)
Shaun Gladwell (Australia)
Robert Gober (USA)
Duane Hanson (USA)
Sam Jinks (Australia)
Allen Jones (UK)
Peter Land (Denmark)
Tony Matelli (USA)
Paul McCarthy (USA)
Ron Mueck (Australia)
Jan Nelson (Australia)
Tony Oursler (USA) 
Evan Penny (USA) 
Patricia Piccinini (Australia) 
Marc Quinn (UK) 
Mel Ramos (US) 
Ugo Rondinone (Swiss) 
Jamie Salmon (UK) 
George Segal (USA) 
Marc Sijan (Serbia) 
Ronnie van Hout (NZ/Australia) 
Sun Yuan & Peng Yu (China)

This exhibition is made possible through the support of presenting partner Visit Canberra, major partner Qantas, and supporting partner Maddocks, as well as Exhibition Patrons, Zeke Solomon and the Neilson Foundation.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF AUSTRALIA
www.nga.gov.au

Tony Matelli at Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.

Tony Matelli: New Gravity
Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.
February 5 - July 20, 2014

Tony Matelli: New Gravity, the artist’s first solo exhibition at a U.S museum, opens at the Davis Museum on February 5, 2014. Comprised of recent works from the past five years as well as new works created specifically for the Davis, the exhibition focuses on the artist’s discursive use of time, ambivalence, banality and wonder. In Matelli’s work the physical laws of objects are often reversed, upended or atomized, and with these deft manipulations of matter and gravity come profound reorientations in perspective and ways of seeing. Matelli creates a distortion field of sorts, a lens through which to question one reality and create another.

Installed in two parts at the Davis, the exhibition also sites two sculptures (Sleep Walker and Stray Dog) outdoors on campus. Tony Matelli: New Gravity will be on view February 5 - May 11, in the Bronfman & Chandler Galleries; and February 5 - July 20 in the Jobson & Tanner Galleries.

“Tony Matelli is a trader in combinatory illusions, a skilled manipulator of the restless mediation between metaphor, meaning and truth," said Lisa Fischman, Ruth Gordon Shapiro ’37 Director of the Davis and curator of the exhibition.

“His works are persistently surprising, inventive, powerful and playful – evoking complex sensations and inviting multiple viewings. We are delighted to present his first U.S. museum exhibition at the Davis and to introduce New England audiences to his work.”

Often employing a hyper-realistic idiom, Matelli’s work challenges our perceptions of reality. His sculptures create a disconcerting tension between uneasiness and humor, frequently suspending time and belief. Matelli imbues his art with layers of familiarity and discomfort, employing remarkable skill and technique to create works that ask us to take a critical look at ourselves and at the culture around us.

“There is a romantic impulse in my work, that strives to give form to my emotions and thoughts and the way I see the world,” commented Matelli. “I’m fascinated with that moment when you become aware of a perceptual shift in your environment, so what was a seemingly real-life experience becomes a complicated art experience. That approach to art is really powerful. It makes everything else seem like a prop that only pointed to an idea. The precision of praxis has a great impact on me, and my work operates in that spirit.”

Tony Matelli’s work is in numerous private and public collections including the Cranbrook Art Museum; FLAG Art Foundation; ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum; the National Centre of Contemporary Art, Moscow; Fundacion La Caixa, Madrid; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; and the Uppsala Konstmuseum, Sweden. Recent solo exhibitions have been presented at the Ku?nstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin and the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. A mid-career survey, Tony Matelli: A Human Echo, premiered at the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark in 2012 and traveled to the Bergen Kunstmuseum, Norway in 2013. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, and is represented by Marlborough Chelsea, New York and Andreéhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm.

Curated by Lisa Fischman, Ruth Gordon Shapiro ’37 Director of the Davis, Tony Matelli: New Gravity and the accompanying catalogue, designed by the artist with Conny Purtill, are generously supported by Wellesley College Friends of Art and the Anonymous ’70 Endowed Davis Museum Program Fund.

Davis Museum, Wellesley College
106 Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02481
www.wellesley.edu/davismuseum/

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

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