In a contemporary era where crises succeed each other and the human situation becomes increasingly precarious, Berlinde De Bruyckere’s sensitive investigation of the common existential basis of humanity, beyond all individual conditions, appears to be particularly urgent. De Bruyckere’s work is characterized by distorted organic forms and bodies, with an often intrusive, almost eerie materiality.
Berlinde De Bruyckere was born in 1964 in Ghent, Belgium, where she also lives and works. Over the past 20 years, she has had extensive international exhibition activities, with acclaimed solo exhibitions at, among others, MO.CO in Montpellier, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, Bonnefanten in Maastricht, Sara Hilden Art Museum in Tampere, Leopold Museum in Vienna, Kunsthaus Bregenz and ACCA in Melbourne. In 2013 she represented Belgium at the 55th Venice Biennale, where she will now return to participate in the 60th edition of the Biennale with an exhibition in the Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore.
– De Bruyckere’s work is both a meditation on a bygone era and on our sometimes somewhat dystopian present. Artipelag has followed the artistry for many years and in 2019 Berlinde De Bruyckere’s work Rodt, January 6, 2012 became part of Artipelag’s Sculpture in nature . We are delighted to be able to introduce her artistry to the Swedish public, says museum director Bo Nilsson.
No Life Lost includes sculptures, installations and works on paper, with a selection spanning from 1995 to the present day. A main theme in the exhibition is the ambiguity of the human condition, and the basic human search for transformation, transcendence and reconciliation. With its diversity of different materials and its wide time span, No Life Lost is at the same time a comprehensive presentation of De Bruyckere’s artistry, which, despite great international success, has not yet been shown in Sweden.
De Bruyckere’s imagery is also characterized by a strong historical anchoring. Among other things, she starts from the Flemish Renaissance with its roots in the spiritual tradition of Catholic Christianity, and returns in many works to Christian legends and archaic myths. De Bruyckere adds new stories, inspired by contemporary events, to these already existing legends. In the artistry, there is also a special relationship with nature, which is often portrayed in the form of “stigmatized” trees that have been exposed to the environmental destruction that today constitutes one of the issues of humanity’s destiny. Animals also occupy a special position in De Bruyckere’s work, with the horse as a recurring and charged motif.
