Balthus, Study for “Le Salon”, 1940-42, oil on canvas, 25 5/8 x 31 7/8 in. (65 x 81 cm).
Private Collection, Courtesy of Luxembourg & Dayan. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018.
Private Collection, Courtesy of Luxembourg & Dayan. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018.
Fra le fiere più fresche e frizzanti Art Basel Hong Kong offre alla gallerie invitate carta bianca per progetti di grande profilo, come farà la Luxemburg & Dayan con una mostra curata dal mitico Jeffrey Deitch dal titolo "Figure moderne" con opere di Baj, Gnoli, Picasso e tanti altri grandi artisti.
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Luxembourg & Dayan is pleased to announce its participation in Art Basel Hong Kong 2018 with an exhibition curated by Jeffrey Deitch. Titled Modern Figures, the presentation highlights a variety of approaches to figuration in artworks from the 1920s through 1960s, touching on movements from Surrealism to Pop and Nouveau Réalisme. The presentation celebrates these shifting attitudes towards form in works by Enrico Baj, Balthus, Giorgio de Chirico, Domenico Gnoli, Giorgio Morandi, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, and Martial Raysse, among others.
Modern Figures tracks a variety of approaches to the subject of the human body, from exacting verisimilitude to abstraction, parody, and distortion. The ability to capture the figure has long stood as the apex of naturalism; in the 1920s, Surrealism paired naturalism with a sense of the uncanny, the body presented as if a dream image pulled from the depths of the subconscious. Works by Balthus and de Chirico offer scenes that balance realism with fantasy, using classicism towards mysterious ends. In Picasso’s Le baiser (1930), an abstracted embrace poises the body as a site of obscure desire.
In the 1950s and 60s, the human form once again emerged as a found subject (a “readymade” of sorts) in the work of Baj, Gnoli, and Raysse—artists involved with Pop and its European counterpart, Nouveau Réalisme, but influenced by Surrealism, too. The Surrealist figure tends to emerge from the imagination or desire of the individual; in contrast, the Pop-inflected work of the 1960s concerned itself with bodies appropriated and pieced together from the mass media dreamscape of a postwar world. Fashion advertisements feature in Raysse’s collaged paintings, while Baj's "Picabaj" series stitch together kaleidoscopic portraits in homage to Picasso's Cubist approach to form.
The presentation will be accompanied by a public conversation between Jeffrey Deitch, curator Francesco Bonami, and artist Szeto Lap. The conversation will take place on 26 March 2018, at 4pm in the Sky Lounge at the Upper House, Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Hong Kong, 49th Floor.
