The duo regularly collaborates with galleries in Amsterdam, Basel, New York and Zurich. Since 1999, he has participated in a multitude of international group exhibitions, including several at the Jura Museum of Arts in Moutier, at the EAC (les halles) in Porrentruy, as well as at the Jura Museum of Art and History in Delémont. Many personal events have also been held all over the world, sometimes in connection with prizes (last year, the culture prize awarded by the municipality of Riehen) and artists’ grants.
Stimulating residences
Indeed, H. Kühne and B. Klein have multiplied their residences: Paris, Dublin, Guernsey, Neuenkirchen (D), Cork, Berlin, Moscow, Ornans, in Denmark, in the United States, in Iceland, offering themselves as many opportunities to renew themselves, because they often do their work with the means at hand. The creative process starts with recycling and everyday materials: tourist brochures, packaging, magazines and newspapers. This is how works in relief are born (the series of Breeds of Birds made in Iceland) and in three dimensions (notably the Houseplants) which complete the exhibition.
Chronicle of a mischievous technique
Strictly speaking, collage was born with the cubist experiments of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in 1912. Dadaists, then surrealists, used it extensively, giving voice to the unconscious. However, the duo of artists notes that 19th century realist painters like Gustave Courbet (from whom they draw inspiration for Landscapes making up the Juraa delicately romantic collage) created landscapes from several views, already a form of collage.
This observation even applies to works dating back to the Middle Ages which present, in the background of religious scenes, imaginary views borrowing elements from existing landscapes. The present work is in keeping with this spirit by pushing the approach to the fragment. Sometimes, it is no longer even a piece of landscape, but an object, a body, a fragment of a body, recognizable as such, and fitting, tiny, into a much larger context which sometimes has nothing to do with him, sometimes yes. It depends on what the artists want to express.
The subject can be completely invented, or start from a work which provides a reference in form and substance. Thus studio scenes with models, still lifes whose timelessness recalls the spirit of Odilon Redon’s bouquets or an encyclopedic banquet of artistic references after the extremely famous Cana Nuts by Veronese. Not art for art’s sake, but a reflection in resonance with its history, peppered with poetry, nostalgia, many winks and personal references. A game. Also for the spectator who has fun discovering and recognizing the characters of well-known works.
The result, in a deliberately generous format, is rather stunning. Given the mode of operation, it could be heavy. However, the Cloudall in subtle nuances, has the enveloping lightness of white cumulus clouds, those on which we would like to embark on a tour of the sky.
The exhibition, as its title says so well, seeks to raise questions about what constitutes an image by pushing the demonstration to a rather virtuoso point.
The nature of Imagesan exhibition by Hendrikje Kühne and Beat Klein at the FARB gallery in Delémont, until November 24. Open Friday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Presence of artists this Sunday.
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