Encounter. When gender, sexuality and freedom is linked with modern artists and the oeuvre of Nicole Eisenman
Titled “Heads, Kisses, Battles - Nicole Eisenman and the Moderns”, the exhibition of the Aargauer Kunsthaus, which was on show at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, and will later travel to the Fondation Vincent Van Gogh Arles and the Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
The show is comprising of 70 works by Nicole Eisenman in dialogue with modern works such as Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch, Alice Bailly and Alexej von Jawlensky.
Links - Art and Life
When I first encounter the oeuvre of Nicole Eisenman, it was in a book titled “ Nicole Eisenman” and published in 2011 by JRP edition. But, did you know her? Did you know her past, with is evoked in the retrospective, which evoke her relation with sexuality, gender, copy, style and creation?
Thus, the artist, which was born in 1965 in Verdun (France), as quickly moved and grow up in the United stated. By moving to Scarsdale in the state of New-York, she was able to find herself in a multicultural, free and easygoing city full of different personality and person. All of the contrary of her parent, which is very strict and not very open.
When she decided to start her study of art at the Rhode Island School of Design, she, of course received a B.F.A in painting in 1987. But she will feel her love for woman, a proud woman. In the mean time, she though herself to be gender fluid with the pronom she, her, they or them.
The exhibition in itself, past,
present and themes
She's also trying to open up a dialogue about what male and occidental perspective on art history have shaped what we have in our museums and how little women there are in those collections. Thus, she's including, next to her works mostly works made by female artist such as Alice Bailly, while evoking mostly Swiss or German artists such as Hermann Scherer.
While the title evokes an exhibition made around modern connections and a few themes, it's, beforehand a retrospective. Thus, the first room of the exhibition (picture N°4) is a room dedicated to one of her latest works titled "Night Studio". And numerous works she made during the 2010s and the 2020s.
But, as you encounter them with works as old as one hundred year, you feel like they take part of a group, a series of work or even depicting the same theme or emotion in a different perspective. But, from time to time she's clearly referring to icons of modern art while shapeshifting it into a new oeuvre with a new technique or point of view.
While a full ray of style and inspiration, the artist defined herself as a "stylistic chameleon" with a figurative approach. From time to time it's more realists, abstract, big or small, but never the less powerful in the subject she wants to transform and focus on.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Aargauer Kunsthaus
Date: 29.1.2022 – 24.4.2022
Curator: Nicole Eisenman and Dr. Katharina Ammann
Ticket: Available at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Aargauer Kunsthaus
Aargauer Kunsthaus
Aargauerplatz
CH-5001 Aarau
Phone: +41 62 835 23 30
Mail: Kunsthaus@ag.ch