Photo: © Lionel Wendt. Private collection, courtesy Jhaveri Contemporary (London/Mumbai)
Beginning June 10, Huis Marseille presented Juul Kraijer / Chimaera — a photo series centered on the human body — alongside two other exhibitions: Revealing Reality / Andres Serrano, a retrospective of American artist Andres Serrano (1950), and Lionel Wendt / Ceylon, featuring rediscovered work by the Ceylonese avant-garde photographer and artist Lionel Wendt (1940–1944).
The images by visual artist Juul Kraijer (1970) defy traditional iconography: the photographs in the Chimaera exhibition make the improbable seem real. Kraijer’s enigmatic figures begin with a human body, but she presents that form in a way that resists every classification. Complete mastery of the body plays a decisive role in Chimaera.
This time, the models’ bodies serve as the photographer’s muse rather than their faces or personalities, because the body can be played like an instrument. In this new exhibition, Juul Kraijer extends her artistic exploration into the anatomical universe beneath her models’ skin. Contortionist Lise Pauton and butoh dancer Camille Mutel transform into enigmatic forms that could just as easily be animal or plant, resonating with the infinite possibilities of existence.
After the photography of Ceylonese artist Lionel Wendt (1900–1944) had fallen into obscurity, it was rediscovered worldwide as the work of a distinctive practitioner of experimental techniques and modern composition. Wendt’s subjects were eclectic, ranging from sensual and homoerotic portraits to tropical images of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, and from Pictorialist scenes to compositions made with modernist devices and experimental techniques.
Contemporary (London/Mumbai)
After Wendt’s untimely death in 1944, his negatives were destroyed, but the work he left behind lives on. It consists of a collection of beautiful experimental prints, some held by major institutions such as Tate Modern in London and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. That year, Wendt’s work was shown at Documenta 14 in Athens and in a major retrospective at Huis Marseille from June 10 through September 3, 2017, presenting every facet of his fascinating oeuvre.
The work of leading artist Andres Serrano (New York, 1950) fascinates and provokes. In scale, composition, and choice of subject, Serrano’s works closely resemble those of the Old Masters. Unlike the imagined scenes in those old paintings, however, Serrano’s work confronts us directly with contemporary reality. Andres Serrano takes a profound interest in the human condition, which he photographs in a way that is both moving and unsettling, yet nonjudgmental.
Revealing Reality was the first major exhibition of Andres Serrano’s work in the Netherlands in twenty years. It combined early abstract works from the series Bodily Fluids with works from Serrano’s newest series Torture and Denizens of Brussels. Serrano’s mastery is especially evident in his portraits. Through the themes of his extensive oeuvre, he makes the reality of human existence visible, tracing it from the gutter to heaven.
More information was available from Huis Marseille.
