Berlinde De Bruyckere

Plunder | Ekphrasis

“This is my most important solo exhibition in an institution in France. I am proud of this collaboration and to be able to show the public new works in exceptional exhibition spaces.”
Berlinde De Bruyckere

The solo exhibition of Berlinde De Bruyckere at MO.CO. is the most ambitious presentation of her work in France this far. On the occasion, MO.CO. inaugurates a new chapter of its history, with a programme that, from now on, incorporates vast monographic exhibitions. 

The one dedicated to Berlinde De Bruyckere, conceived in a tight-knit collaboration with the artist, puts together some fifty works made by her between 1999 and 2022. Exploring her preferred media (sculpture, installation, drawing, watercolour, and collage), she takes over all the spaces of Hôtel Montcalm. The selection includes six new works created specifically for this project in Montpellier.

Although the exhibition at MO.CO. will have as crucial elements some well-known themes of Berlinde De Bruyckere’s production like the martyr, redemption, and metamorphosis it will equally plunge on less often highlighted aspects of her work, such as eroticism or the relations and hybridizations between humans, plants, and animals, in addition to notions around work and exploitation.

Curators

Under the artistic direction of Numa Hambursin, general director

Co-curators : Vincent Honoré, director of exhibitions, Rahmouna Boutayeb, curator, Anna Kerekes, senior curator.

The exhibition benefits from the financial support of the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs Occitanie, Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole, the City of Montpellier and the Flanders State of Art. 

Biographie

Born in Ghent, Belgium, in 1964, where she currently lives and works, Berlinde De Bruyckere was deeply influenced by the Flemish Renaissance painting. Drawing on the legacy of great European masters, religious iconography, as well as on ancient mythology and traditional culture, her work rests upon the dialectics experienced between images of current affairs and the breath of universal and timeless parables. By experimenting with malleable materials, like wax, fabric, or animal skin, Berlinde De Bruyckere built a unique body of work, simultaneously identifiable and moving, at times also unsettling, that translates into the flesh of sculptures the paradox of ‘sublime weakness’ posited by Lao-Tzu. Working both as a painter and a sculptor, her hybrid forms with human, animal, and plant features, bear an envelope, a diaphanous skin, or a bark under which quiver very dainty veins, a sap that ceaselessly flows and witnesses the hope contained in the miracle of each life.

The work of Berlinde De Bruyckere was the subject of exhibitions in important international institutions. In 2013, she represented Belgium in the 55th Venice Biennale, in a collaboration with Nobel Prize in Literature J. M. Coetzee.

Catalogue

Berlinde De Bruyckere’s exhibition is accompanied by the publication of a richly illustrated catalogue for the occasion, in both French and English by Bernard Chauveau Edition, with graphic design entrusted to the design studio Atelier Tout va bien.

It also comprises unpublished contributions of the South African writer Antjie Krog and Numa Hambursin, as well as an interview with the artist made by the curators.

Documents