Michaël Borremans: Fire from the Sun (Spotlight)

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MBYes, that's part of the communication you do as an artist. It's not finished. It only exists in the eye of the beholder. DdInitially you were trained as an etcher. What prompted you to shift your focus to painting? What allure does painting hold for you? Embarking on a career as a painter relatively late, at the age of 33, Belgian artistMichaël Borremansinitially trained as a draughtsman and engraver at Saint Lucas in Ghent. On the occasion of his inaugural exhibitionMichaël Borremans: Fire from the Sunat the newDavid Zwirnerspace inHong Kong(27 January–9 March 2018), I spoke with Borremans about his practice and his participation in theBiennale of Sydney (BoS)(16 March–11 June 2018). Michaël Borremans, Small Museum for Brave Art (four variations) (2007). Wood, cardboard and paint, dimensions variable. Exhibition view: 21 st Biennale of Sydney, Artspace, Sydney (16 March–11 June 2018). Courtesy the artist and Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp. Photo: Document Photography. DdYou are exhibiting at Artspace as part of the Biennale of Sydney (BoS) from March to June. What is your approach? In 1981, Frank and Eliane Demaegd founded Zeno X Gallery in an early 20th century townhouse in the Antwerp South district. In the early years the program of the gallery was mainly focused on architecture and installations with artists such as John View Gallery Profile

The first in a series of small-format publications devoted to single bodies of work, Fire from the Sun highlights Michaël Borremans’s new work, which features toddlers engaged in playful but mysterious acts with sinister overtones and insinuations of violence. Initially you were trained as an etcher. What prompted you to shift your focus to painting? What allure does painting hold for you? MBThese painters and their technique, they're most suitable for me and my temperament, because the way you paint has to do with attitude and temperament. That's why painting continues to remain an interesting medium, because every artist can find his own language in this medium. It's like a musical instrument. Everybody has to find their own style of playing. And it took me a while to get there. It's still an evolution, which is interesting of course, because I don't know how my work will look in ten years or so. It's an adventure. DdI'm interested in the evolution of these paintings. How did they come about?

And here’s the New York Times (aka New York Slime). “When High Fashion and QAnon Collide” is the headline. “Two new Balenciaga campaigns ignited a firestorm that traveled from the internet to Fox News, fueled by allegations that the brand condoned child exploitation.”

MBIt was overnight. It was like an epiphany. All of a sudden I knew I had to paint. One sudden moment it just came to me that I just had to paint. DdWhat was the first thing you painted? The 21st Biennale of Sydney (BoS) (16 March-11 June 2018) is titled SUPERPOSITION: Equilibrium and Engagement and examines the state of 'superposition' by exploring how it mightoperate in the world today. The word is derived from the world View Event Created over the last two years during the global pandemic, the eight portraits and seven scenographic compositions in The Acrobat are imbued with pending questions and underlying tensions that operate on multiple registers. Borremans seemingly revisits subject matter from his own body of work, introducing new and varied meanings in every iteration of his mysterious compositions. As the writer Katya Tylevich observes, “Yes, these are paintings made across two years of a global pandemic, and an allegory of isolation leaps out in a puff of confetti. Then again, Borremans’s works have always cautioned against standing too close.” 2 The artist’s tendency to work more regularly in series comes from his longing to go deeper. At the same time, a cinematic continuum is suggested from which random stills are made. However, it remains unclear to viewers whether there really is a narrative structure in which one work follows on from the other.

Melissa Martin, Ph.D., is a former professional child therapist, early literacy advocate, book author, and syndicated opinion-editorial columnist. Her work appears in various national and international newspapers. She lives in Southern Ohio. Fire from the Sun” (Spotlight Series)is the 2018 book by Borremans identified in the second Balenciaga ad without children. For two decades, artist Michaël Borremans has been confounding—and captivating—audiences with his enigmatic paintings. Trained as a draughtsman and engraver at Luca School of Arts in Ghent, followed by several years of photography, it View Bio, Works & Exhibitions

I still like the idea that people get together in a building to talk about life and death. But any religion that is run by an institution is bad. It should be like Buddhism: you can only do it in your head. “If it’s not about power, you’re missing the point.” In 2007, he had a solo show at gallery De Appel in Amsterdam, focusing on his cinematic works. [6] In 2005, he had a one-person exhibition of paintings and drawings at the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent. The paintings then traveled to Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London, and The Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, while the drawings traveled to the Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio. Other solo exhibitions include La maison rouge, Paris (2006); Kunsthalle Bremerhaven, Bremerhaven, Germany; and the Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel, Switzerland (both 2004). In 2004, he participated in Manifesta 5, The European Biennial of Contemporary Art. [7]It was overnight. It was like an epiphany. All of a sudden I knew I had to paint. One sudden moment it just came to me that I just had to paint. Balenciaga has come under fire for its Balenciaga Objects collection ad campaign, titled "Balenciaga Gift Shop," that was shot by Gabriele Galimberti. The review went on to say, “Fire from the Sun shows children aged two or three playing with fire and what look like human limbs, even hair, in different ways.” The children are all Sistine-style cherubs with light skin, and sometimes they are covered in blood. “The children don’t seem worried or upset, but some people in the gallery might be.” Belgian painter Michaël Borremans is pictured in Brussels on February 20, 2014. The inset shows signage for the Balenciaga shoe boutique in New York City. Borremans has become a talking point on social media amid a scandal over a recent Balenciaga ad campaign. BENOIT DOPPAGNE/AFP via Getty Images;/Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

His retrospective As sweetas it gets travelled in 2014-2015 from Bozar in Brussels to the Tel Aviv Museum of Contemporary Art and the Dallas Museum of Art. The exhibition Eating the Beard opened at the Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo before being shown at Kunstverein Stuttgart, Kunsthalle Budapest and Kunsthalle Helsinki. Michaël Borremans has also had solo exhibitions at CAC Malaga, the Hara Museum in Tokyo, MCA Denver, Kestner Gesellschaft in Hannover, De Appel Arts Centre in Amsterdam, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Parasol Unit in London, S.M.A.K. in Ghent, Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel, Kunsthalle Bremerhaven and many more. In 2011, Borremans' work was the subject of a solo exhibition, titled Eating the Beard, which was first on view at Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart in Germany and traveled to Műcsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest, and Kunsthalle Helsinki in Finland. In 2010, he had a solo exhibition at the Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, and in 2009, he had a solo show at the Kestnergesellschaft in Hanover, Germany [5] The ruling upheld the PROTECT Act, a 2003 federal law that criminalizes advertising, promoting, presenting or distributing child pornography. Its acronym stands for Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today.Who Is Michaël Borremans? Artist's Work Resurfaces Amid Balenciaga Scandal". Newsweek. 28 November 2022 . Retrieved 2 December 2022. Behind this lies the loss of a forgotten, long set aside innocence of the painted image, the refusal of the possibility of direct observation of reality and its reproduction through painting. Today, painting can no longer merely document reality. It always entails a submersion into the long tradition of the imaginative world of painting as such. The 21st Biennale of Sydney (16 March-11 June 2018) is titled 'SUPERPOSITION: Equilibrium and Engagement' and examines the state of 'superposition' by exploring how it might operate in the world today. View More In an excerpt from his book about Borremans’ work, Bracewell wrote, “The scenes shown in most of the paintings in Fire from the Sun show a state of being or society in which the primal is out of control, without direction, in a state of anarchy.”