Nantes – France
In the age of transhumanist utopias and cosmetic surgery, how do we view our imperfect bodies? Born in the United States in the 1960s, hyperrealistic sculpture is experiencing a resurgence of interest that prompts us to ask questions: following the Maillol Museum and the Beyeler Foundation 1Here she is, in the spotlight at the Nantes Museum of Fine Arts, the only French public collection to hold a sculpture by the master of the genre, Duane Hanson. Alongside his remarkably lifelike bookseller and art dealer (cast in polyester resin, but dressed in real clothes and accessories), are some forty works by eleven international artists, including Marc Sijan, Tony Matelli, Gilles Barbier, and Daniel Firman.
Optical illusion
The whispers of the hooded or helmeted youths echo the sounds of the latter, echoed by figures buried under blankets. "like ghosts of human tragedies" by Berlinde De Bruyckere, or the shoe emerging from under a fascinating bedspread raised in ceramic by Saana Murtti. Sam Jinks's wrinkled silicone babies (2013) are echoed by Tip Toland's wrinkled, grimacing face of an old woman in painted stoneware (2021). No less breathtakingly realistic is Evan Penny's patinated bronze bust (2009), which manages to convey not only the tension of the muscles and bone structure but also the sheen of the skin…
Mirror effect
"How far do you want to push the 'truth' of your sculptures?", asked a journalist from the magazine in 1972 Art in America to John DeAndrea, one of the pioneers of the genre to whom the Vallois gallery is dedicating an exhibition in Paris. "I want them to breathe.""That's what he replied. And here we are, faced with this illusion, this deceptive truth, undeniably disturbed, torn between fascination with the perfect illusionism reproducing the human body in its smallest details and a certain repulsion for the morbidity of these inert mannequins…"
Blurring the lines between art and reality, beyond the technical prowess of the execution, beyond the meticulous rendering of these non-idealized bodies (from wrinkles to skin texture…), and beyond their “absolute immobility”, do these sculptures not belong to the realm of living art, asks Katell Jaffrès, scientific curator of the exhibition? "A form of living art, like theatre, which, by placing us at a distance from ourselves, allows us to see ourselves differently?"
- “Hyperrealism. This is not a body,” Maillol Museum, Paris, September 7 – January 8, 2023; “Hyperrealism in the face of 150 years of art,” Beyeler Foundation, Riehen (Switzerland), October 30 – January 8, 2023
"Highly sensitive". A look at hyperrealistic sculpture
Until September 3, 2023
Nantes Museum of Art
museedartsdenantes.nantesmetropole.fr/home/informations-actus/expositions/hyper-sensible/lexposition.html
“John DeAndrea – Grace”
From June 9 to 22 July 2023
Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois Gallery
galerie-vallois.com
AND ALSO
"Ron Mueck"
Until November 5, 2023
Cartier Foundation
fondationcartier.com/en/exhibitions/ron-mueck-2
“Hans Op De Beeck – Silence and Resonance”
Until September 3, 2023
Flanders Museum, Cassel
museedeflandre.fr