Into One-Another

Born in 1964, Berlinde de Bruyckere, who lives and works in Ghent, is an exceptional phenomenon in contemporary art. In her works, there is a moving and bemusing sense of physical fragility to the point of it metamorphosing into other beings. With science now capable of generating nature, these works raise ethical issues, and, in their emotional and aesthetic detachment from the voyeurism of the media and the mechanisms of advertising images, they are provokingly existential. De Bruyckere's works share with Cranach the Elder the physical vulnerability visible in the nudes and the figure of the Man of Sorrows. In images from films by Pasolini, the body acts as the language of a reality verging on myth. Pasolini was a vocal critic of the 'hedonistic fascism' of the media and consumer society that devalued the body. He saw the leveling down as a loss of vital reality.
This catalogue work constitutes an extraordinary dialogue in pictures by De Bruyckere, Cranach and Pasolini. An essay by philosopher Gernot Böhme about the figure of the Man of Sorrows sets the works of art in the context of German philosophy and current ethical issues.