Michaël Borremans: Fire from the Sun (Spotlight)

Product Information

The month-long residency is a collaboration between Ocula and the Austrian art association Salzburger Kunstverein. Borremans, 59, is an acclaimed Belgian painter and filmmaker who was born in Geraardsbergen and lives and works in Ghent. David Zwirner is pleased to announce The Acrobat, an exhibition of new paintings by Michaël Borremans, taking place at the gallery’s 525 West 19th Street location in New York. This will be the artist’s seventh solo exhibition with the gallery and his first in New York since 2011. It follows his 2018 exhibition Fire from the Sun at David Zwirner Hong Kong. In 2011, Michaël Borremans: Eating the Beard, a comprehensive solo show, was presented at the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, and traveled to the Műcsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest, and the Kunsthalle Helsinki. In 2010, he had a solo exhibition at the Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, as well as commissioned work on view at the Royal Palace in Brussels. Other venues that have hosted solo exhibitions include the kestnergesellschaft, Hanover (2009); de Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam (2007); Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent (2005), which traveled to Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London, and the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio (2005); Kunsthalle Bremerhaven, Germany (2004); and Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2004). a b "Balenciaga under fire again as 'disturbing' Michael Borremans book spotted in ad". HITC. 24 November 2022 . Retrieved 30 November 2022.

And here’s the New York Times (aka New York Slime). “When High Fashion and QAnon Collide” is the headline. “Two new Balenciaga campaigns ignited a firestorm that traveled from the internet to Fox News, fueled by allegations that the brand condoned child exploitation.” Yes, that’s part of the communication you do as an artist. It’s not finished. It only exists in the eye of the beholder. In 2011, Michaël Borremans: Eating the Beard, a comprehensive solo show, was presented at the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, and traveled to the Műcsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest, and the Kunsthalle Helsinki. In 2010, the artist had a solo exhibition at the Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, as well as commissioned work on view at the Royal Palace in Brussels. Other venues that have hosted solo exhibitions include the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover, Germany (2009); de Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam (2007); Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent (2005; traveled to Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London; and Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin); Cleveland Museum of Art (2005); Kunsthalle Bremerhaven, Germany (2004); and the Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2004).Explaining why he got into art collecting, Beatz said, 'there's not enough people of colour collecting artists of colour.' Initially you were trained as an etcher. What prompted you to shift your focus to painting? What allure does painting hold for you? Borremans, quoted in Daiga Rudzāte, “White Canvas Is Ugly: An Interview with Artist Michaël Borremans,” Arterritory.com, March 11, 2000. These are all things that are influential for my visual language, which I do on the side but are important for me. I will show part of my artistic repertoire I suppose—what’s in my head and has formed me—I think it will be interesting for the show. MBI want to do an experiment there. I want to show part of my thought process in the evolution of my work. I will be showing a lot of stuff that I have in drawers and that has been significant for me. Some are old pictures I've collected from here and there, even from the internet, and I've them printed out—things that have been influential in forming my vocabulary—and a lot of drawings, unfinished drawings from my personal archive, shown in vitrines. There will also be scale models—little sculptures, ideas for sculptures. Sculpture is a hobby for me. Nobody is waiting for it and I like that. I am including a couple of film works and spaceships that I have designed.

I recall you once said that people either loved or were repelled by your work because of this beautiful painterly quality. That the main focus seemed to be how the painting was painted, and everything else got overlooked. The paintings live in the seductive space of metaphor and possibility, which can stretch beyond the artist’s intentions. Borremans created this body of work specifically for the opening; he knew that a local reading of it would have global variations. Having travelled from Los Angeles to attend the opening, I juxtaposed these paintings against the morning’s news: against cavalier acts of violence and bloody origins, against history’s unwillingness to be erased, no matter the pressure to do so. I heard other interpretations while there, and so did the artist: that the paintings examine the loss of innocence, that they are a caricature of original sin, that they meditate on hypocrisy, that they demonstrate human capacity to be at once good and evil. How many more ideas went unarticulated? Fire from the Sun, 2017 Dafoe, Taylor (30 November 2022). "How Artists Matthew Barney and Michaël Borremans Found Themselves Swept Up in Controversy Over a Balenciaga Ad Campaign". Artnet . Retrieved 1 December 2022. In 2011, Michaël Borremans: Eating the Beard, a comprehensive solo show was presented at the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, and traveled to the Mu´´csarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest and the Kunsthalle Helsinki. In 2010, he had a solo exhibition at the Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, as well as commissioned work on view at the Royal Palace in Brussels. Other venues which have hosted solo exhibitions include the kestnergesellschaft, Hanover (2009); de Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam (2007); Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent (2005; traveled to Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London; and the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin); Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio (2005); Kunsthalle Bremerhaven, Germany (2004); and Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel (both 2004).The New York Postreported, “Balenciaga has taken a hit yet again over photographs from an axed ad campaign that shows a book featuring a Belgian artist whose work includes depictions of castrated toddlers.” Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys’ Collection to Show in Brooklyn By Sam Gaskin, New York, 28 November 2023

Borremans' work at been widely displayed, including a solo showing in Hong Kong of his Fire From the Sun series of paintings, which showed blood-covered toddlers playing in fire and what appeared to be human limbs.White Cube Announces Representation of Lynne Drexler Archive By Sam Gaskin, London, 28 November 2023 Work by the artist is held in public collections internationally, including Art Institute of Chicago; Dallas Museum of Art; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Borremans lives and works in Ghent. In a 2016 interview in art magazine Apollo, Borremans said of his work: "Drawing...offers me the most freedom because it's only pencil and paper and there are no boundaries. You can do whatever you want in a drawing—not in a painting. Not in my case." 'Fire From the Sun' Paintings

These painters and their technique, they’re most suitable for me and my temperament, because the way you paint has to do with attitude and temperament. That’s why painting continues to remain an interesting medium, because every artist can find his own language in this medium. It’s like a musical instrument. Everybody has to find their own style of playing. And it took me a while to get there. It’s still an evolution, which is interesting of course, because I don’t know how my work will look in ten years or so. It’s an adventure.Michaël Borremans, The Storm (2006). Single-channel video, 1:07 mins, looped. Exhibition view: 21 st Biennale of Sydney, Artspace, Sydney (16 March–11 June 2018). Courtesy the artist and Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp. Photo: Document Photography. DdDid the guys know about it? In another part of the review, it said, “While the fire and (possible) cannibalism suggest some kind of ritual, the works are most frightening as sketches of random violence that is both cause and effect.”“The characters shown don’t fit one stereotype (angelic) but do fit another (demonic).” The first in a series of small-format publications devoted to single bodies of work, Fire from the Sun highlights Michaël Borremans’s new work, which features toddlers engaged in playful but mysterious acts with sinister overtones and insinuations of violence. Who Is Michaël Borremans? Artist's Work Resurfaces Amid Balenciaga Scandal". Newsweek. 28 November 2022 . Retrieved 2 December 2022. I did once, but now I want to dress up like a policewoman. I’m looking for a nice uniform to wear to see if it will influence what I’m painting [ laughs].