Michaël Borremans: Weight Text by Ann Demeester, Massimiliano Gioni, Philippe-Alain Michaud, Delfim Sardo.
Belgium-based Michael Borremans creates absurd and sometimes ominous paintings. “Horse Hunting” (2005), for example, depicts, in a muddy palette, a pale and moody-looking man in a suit jacket and crisp white shirt shoving two twigs up his nose. He stares straight at us, and the wall behind him is filled with his shadow. Borremans has said of his paintings, “I use clichés and other elements that are part of a collective consciousness… my work would be perfect on biscuit tins.” At the 2006 Berlin Biennale, Borremans showed a film on a small LCD screen, which he had framed like a painting. The piece was based on a 2002 drawing of a girl, which he reproduced in three dimensions, so that the girl slowly spins around. Whatever the medium, Borremans’ work bears this trademark sense of absurdity verging on menace. Weight is published concurrently with an exhibition at De Appel in Amsterdam.
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