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Monday, December 20, 2010

'Past Present (Past Presence)' / close up

'Past Present (Past Presence)', wall installation, 2010

Some more pictures of my wall installation at the ***AD HOC*** exhibition i did together with Dania Burger and Peder K. Bugge, last week at Uferstudios (see post below). The installation consisted of 62 works on paper and 3 oil paintings.  


 'Past Present (Past Presence)', wall installation, close up, 2010

'Past Present (Past Presence)', wall installation, close up, 2010

The works on paper started as sketches or figure studies for new paintings. Using old fashion magazines, and selecting most neutral pictures of male models, I began erasing all fashion references with acrylic paint and ink. Does that sound Freudian...? It does, I'm afraid. Soon they became works in their own right, and I decided to put them up together with a selection of the oil paintings I did so far.  

'Past Present (Past Presence)', wall installation, detail, 2010

'Past Present (Past Presence)', wall installation, detail, 2010

'Past Present (Past Presence)', wall installation, close up,2010

'Past Present (Past Presence)', wall installation, close up, 2010

On the right; 'Jack Smith', 2010, oil on canvas, 40x50 cm. See close ups here (click for enlargement).


'Jack Smith', 2010, oil on canvas, 40x50 cm, detail
'Jack Smith', 2010, oil on canvas, 40x50 cm



'Past Present (Past Presence)', wall installation, detail, 2010
'Past Present (Past Presence)', wall installation, detail, 2010

Center bottom on the left; 'Boy looking up (Jan Rot)', 2010, oil on canvas 30x40 cm. See close ups here (click for enlargement).


'Boy looking up (Jan Rot)', 2010, oil on canvas, 30x40 cm
'Boy looking up (Jan Rot)', 2010, oil on canvas, 30x40 cm, detail


'Past Present (Past Presence)', wall installation, 2010
***AD HOC***, overview, left: Dania Burger, right: Michiel Keuper

***AD HOC*** at Uferstudios Berlin, opening night



All photo's © Michiel Keuper, 2010



5 comments:

Jess Curtis said...

Nice images, sorry I missed it. I'm wondering something about whether the 'fashion references' can really be erased from the bodies themselves though. (injecting my freudian issues here maybe too.)

mfk said...

jess, thanx for your comment. indeed this is an interesting topic, the erasing part (the freudian part too... tell me!). it definitely lays bare certain layers of posing (in a fashion sense but also in general). i think this is what fascinates me. many images in media nowadays want to transmit an 'authenticity', whereas 9 out of 10 images we see are constructed (apart from a photograph being a construct to start with), whether by the photographer, a stylist or the poser himself... it has many layers... let's go on about it with a bottle of wine, at least...

Rose C'est La Vie said...

Michiel, glad to see these close-up where they have massive impact. And I very much liked your comment above. It's high time that someone tried to deconstruct the nature of the fashion image!

Rose C'est La Vie said...

PS I forgot to mention the brilliant juxtaposition of the erased faces with the images of grooming.

mfk said...

rosie, thank you so much. indeed, up till the exhibition i was worried that there would be no coherence between the oil paintings and the later magazine drawings. somehow i was surprised (and relieved!) that there seems to be a thread after all. what's the message? trust your freudian intuition...?
have some close-ups of single drawings still lined up. keep you posted.