Ocula Report Visions of Brazil: Reimagining Modernity from Tarsila to Sonia 18 May 2019 : Fawz Kabra for Ocula Bridging almost a century of Brazilian art, Visions of Brazil: Reimagining Modernity from Tarsila to Sonia at Blum & Poe in New York (30 April–22 June 2019), hosted in collaboration with Mendes Wood DM, offers a rereading of Brazilian Modernism through the works of artists practising at different times, from the 20th century through to the...
Ocula Conversation Reiko Tomii In 1969, Horikawa Michio, schoolteacher and member of the artist collective GUN (Group Ultra Niigata), filled out the customs paperwork to mail a one-kilogram river stone from Niigata, the proverbial 'backside of Japan', to President Nixon. In return, Horikawa received a thank you note for this 'most unusual Christmas gift'—a muted anti-war...
Ocula Report Yun Hyong-keun in Venice: The Artist Behind the Paintings 4 May 2019 : Sherry Paik for Ocula 'He was not a "political" kind of person. He just wanted to be honest and straight. But it was not easy in Korea to live like that,' writes curator Kim Inhye on artist Yun Hyong-keun. For much of his life, Yun lived in proximity to some of the most tumultuous moments in modern Korean history, from which he emerged as a pioneer of abstract...
Michaël Borremans was born in 1963 in Geraardsbergen, Belgium. In 1996, he received his M.F.A. from Hogeschool voor Wetenschap en Kunst, Campus St. Lucas, in Ghent. David Zwirner has represented the artist's works since 2001. Previous solo exhibitions at the gallery include Black Mould, London, 2015, The Devil's Dress, New York, 2011, Taking Turns, New York, 2009, Horse Hunting, New York, 2006, and Trickland, New York, 2003.
Borremans’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at a number of prominent institutions. Most recently, Michaël Borremans: Fixture, was presented at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga in 2015-2016. A major museum survey, Michaël Borremans: As sweet as it gets, which included one hundred works from the past two decades, was on view at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 2014. The exhibition traveled later in the year to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, followed by the Dallas Museum of Art in 2015. Michaël Borremans: The Advantage, the artist’s first museum solo show in Japan, was also on view in 2014 at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.
In 2011, Michaël Borremans: Eating the Beard, a comprehensive solo show was presented at the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, and traveled to the Műcsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest and the Kunsthalle Helsinki. In 2010, he had a solo exhibition at the Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, as well as commissioned work on view at the Royal Palace in Brussels. Other venues which have hosted solo exhibitions include the kestnergesellschaft, Hanover, 2009; de Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam, 2007; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent, 2005; traveled to Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London; and the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, 2005; Kunsthalle Bremerhaven, Germany, 2004; and Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel, both 2004.
Work by the artist is held in public collections internationally, including Art Institute of Chicago; Dallas Museum of Art; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Borremans lives and works in Ghent.
Ocula Conversation Embarking on a career as a painter relatively late, at the age of 33, Belgian artist Michaël Borremans initially trained as a draughtsman and engraver at Saint Lucas in Ghent. On the occasion of his inaugural exhibition Michaël Borremans: Fire from the Sun at the new David Zwirner space in Hong Kong (27 January–9 March 2018), I spoke with Borremans...
Related Press Interview: Artist Michaël Borremans LUXUO : 6 August 2016 Michaël Borremans is a Belgian artist whose oeuvre is as mesmerising as it is mysterious, and as a human being, as delusional as geniuses get. Sitting down with Art Republik, Borremans tell us that he has a country studio especially for guests, equipped with a wood-fired sauna, and a bathroom, which he proudly designed himself, made of marble and...
Related Press Best of the Best: Five Booths at Art Basel Hong Kong Observer : 23 March 2016 This year’s fair features 239 galleries from 35 countries, and presents modern and contemporary art in a full range of media. Although nearly half of the exhibitors are Asia-based galleries, a full 38 galleries in the 2016 edition of the fair are from New York, and in fact four of those galleries—Gagosian Gallery, Lehmann Maupin, Pace...
Related Press The modern mysteries of Michaël Borremans Apollo Magazine : 10 March 2016 ‘It has to do with my character, I think, to be charming and irritating at the same time,’ quips Michaël Borremans not long after we sit down in his Ghent studio. ‘I’m very good at that, and it reflects in my work. You cannot place it, you cannot catalogue it, you cannot define it, and otherwise it looks very...
Related Press Michaël Borremans: Black Mould review – figments of a highly original mind The Guardian : 21 June 2015 The gallery is dark as a church at dusk. The sepulchral gloom is lifted only by a series of small windows pierced into the walls, behind each of which hangs a spotlit painting. At a distance, these look like tiny icons, or medieval panels, and sure enough the figures depicted might be monks or penitents in their black robes and hoods. But come...
