Since antiquity, the detailed reproduction of nature has been one of the key concerns of the craft of painting. In the art of the 20th century, no other movement pursued this rivalry with reality as programmatically as American Photorealism. As a reaction to Abstract Expressionism, artists such as Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Ralph Goings or Ron Kleemann returned to figurative painting, seeking to compete with the medium of photography in its precision and pictorial prowess. Banal motifs from everyday American life became the trademarks of these highly ambitious artists, who located the power of images not in the subject itself, but in its astonishingly illusionistic reproduction. The exhibition explores the evolution of the movement, at times also referred to as Hyperrealism, from the 1960s through to the present day, bringing together well over 70 carefully selected masterpieces.
The numerous international lenders include the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Works by more than 20 artists are on display, including paintings by John Baeder, Robert Bechtle, Charles Bell, Roberto Bernardi, Tom Blackwell, Robert Cottingham, Don Eddy, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Ben Johnson, Ralph Goings, Richard McLean, Malcolm Morley, Ron Kleemann, Karin Kneffel, Gerhard Richter, Raphaella Spence, and Craig Wylie.
Simon Hantaï (1922–2008) is one of the most important representatives of French post-war painting. In 1948, the Hungarian artist emigrated to Paris, where he soon became part of the city's vibrant avant-garde community. After an early Surrealist phase, he turned to Informel painting in the 1950s and at the same time intensively dealt with the work of Jackson Pollock. The year 1960 marked a turning point in Hantaï’s work, as he now focused his radically experimental works on the so-called "pliage comme méthode" – compositions, in which he covered the folded canvas with oil or acrylic in order to produce brightly colored chance patterns. In 1980, Hantaï was awarded the Grand Prix National des Arts Plastiques, and two years later he represented France at the Biennale in Venice. With around 40 often monumental masterpieces from four decades of pictorial experimentation, the exhibition in Baden-Baden provides a multifaceted overview over Hantaï’s visionary artistic output, presenting his outstanding contribution to the development of international post-war abstraction as a deeply moving feast of color.
The numerous lenders to the exhibition include the Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the Musée d’art moderne de Paris, as well as the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne.
An exhibition of the Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden. With the generous support of the Archives Simon Hantaï, Paris.
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