Saturday, June 16, 2012

Berlinde De Bruyckere - "We Are All Flesh" (ACCA)

The first, large, extremely white room contains only two pieces. Suspended above the ground from one wall, a horse (headless and partly opened up), and in the middle of the room, two horses, splayed, again suspended from a kind of simple, brutal hanging frame - stitched/grafted to each other, belly to belly and facing in opposite directions (necks only - again headless). They're monumental, visceral and striking; I'm pretty sure that the horse hide, at least, is actual horse.

In the other rooms are wax sculptures in a range of settings - some, twisted trunks, in a wooden cabinet, doors disconcertingly open towards the viewer, others, resembling exposed human viscera, mounted to the wall or suspended in a kind of bridge/cradle of wood and string, and one abject human figure, head buried, naked. Sinuous, solid, memorable (and aptly titled).