The gentle late-winter light seeps through favourably over Berlinde De Bruyckere’s exhibition at Artipelag in Stockholm. At the far end, two massive tree trunks are wrapped in old blankets (Embalmed Twins I & II, 2017), and in the foreground, a foetus-like form sits curled halfway up a rusty iron column (Schmerzenman IV, 2016). In between, the caved-in body of a dead horse hangs from a gallows (Lost I, 2006). The kunsthalle is vast enough for the Belgian artist’s large-scale sculptures, but the ceiling is a little too low for them to soar.
De Bruyckere has exhibited in Finland and Denmark, but this is her first appearance in Sweden. Artipelag, remotely situated in the archipelago, does its best to attract crowds with international headliners. Sometimes it reduces art to entertainment (as in the immersive experience Imagine Monet), but at its best it manages to carve out its own niche with visually striking art that beats the more prestigious institutions to the punch.
De Bruyckere’s exhibition is based on a honed selection of works from the last thirty years. Ironically, her pious attention to detail – deeply rooted in Flemish cultural history – comes across as a critique of superficial image culture. Is an image a mere representation or an act of love fulfilled by God? She seems to favour the latter, if not by faith then as an ethical conviction.
Yet, even if European art and cultural history is part of De Bruyckere’s artistic DNA, her sculptural work is about the weight, volume, texture, and scale of its own physical presence. The scratched and worn surfaces of displayed objects are significant, as are the apparatuses – tables, cabinets, vitrines, hooks – that she uses to arrange them in different compositions.
For instance, the lifeless horse towering above us on a rusty gallows symbolises, by its very physical appearance, a greater death than that of the individual human being. To depict the horrors of war, it’s not enough to enumerate the casualties, De Bruyckere argues in this work. Instead, she uses the animal’s body to amplify our comprehension of death by making us sense the destruction of a life force more considerable than our own.
Indeed, De Bruyckere evokes the image of a morbid child who cannot help being drawn to death. Which, of course, is a description that fits many of us, even if we often lose that early sense of wonder. Some might argue that she desensitises us to suffering, for instance by using animal carcasses in her work. But isn’t it precisely by confronting the reality of our misfortune without sanitising it that she is able to be so gentle in the face of horror?
De Bruyckere’s work can be said to embody neglected forms of agony. Yet, she also talks about the beauty of the slaughterhouse. In contrast to the Gramscian siren song about art shaping society – and therefore having to act as a political and moral role model – she seems to favour the weaker (but freer) notion that art is about reflection. It’s like prayer. Some people believe in the magic of invocation. For others, to pray means to meditate on a flawed and conflicted existence. As an artist, Bruyckere is sometimes ostentatious, but as this show evinces, she is above all quiet and forgiving.
