accrochage «Rouge» september - december 2012
Born in 1979 in The Netherlands. Lives and works in Amsterdam.
Thomas Raat draws inspiration for his work from art history. Assuming that new art is almost impossible to produce, he manipulates the content of images created in the past and invests them with new meanings. He uses pieces of coloured plastic like pixels combined together into an image, which, paradoxically, closely resembles the cracking of a painting aged with time.
His work explores the field within art is created; from the artist’s motivation to the way the public receives it. Raat’s recent creations oversee the dissemination and dullness of the imagery of modernist art. Using an idiosyncratic combination of imitation, citation, and pastiche, he has succeeded to create 'modernistic' images that seem authentic but which, in reality, are spin-offs of existing pieces.
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accrochage «Voyages Intérieurs» april - june 2013
Born in 1929 in Austria. Lives and works in Vienna.
Painter Arnulf Rainer is mostly known for the series Übermalingen (Overpaintings), which he began in 1952. In these works, Rainer painted over his own creations, but also over other artists’ pieces: first on reproductions, then on paintings artists gave him for that purpose. Later in his career, he went further in this process, and paint over his own pictures. One of his main interests lies in psychiatry and the expressions of insanity; he himself underwent scientific experiences to determine the impact of drugs on his art. Because of this interest, Rainer’s art is often related to the Art Brut movement.
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accrochage «Sexe, Argent et Pouvoir» janvier - mars 2013
Born in 1935 in the USA. Lives and works between Oakland and Horta de San Juan (Spain).
Mel Ramos, one of the most significant figures of Pop art, borrows in his works motifs from the mass media and commercial advertisements. He became best known for his paintings of voluptuous naked women – wrapped around giant Coca-Cola bottles, popping out of candy wrappers or lounging on fresh fruit – drawing upon the imagery of the pin-up magazines from the 1950’s and 1960’s. With these provocative female figures associated to products, Ramos parodies the glamour of the advertising industry, which attempts to influence consumers’ behavior.
Irony is a constant in his work, as he exposes the advertising industry’s strategies by exhibiting them as visual quotations. Comic strips have also had an important influence in his career and Ramos immortalized heroes such as Batman and Wonder Woman in his paintings.
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accrochage «Féminité 0.1» september - december 2011 and «Origine(s)» may - june 2011
John Rankin Waddell, best known as Rankin, was born in 1966 in Scotland. He lives and works in London.
Synonymous with dynamic and intimate portraiture, the photographer has shot everyone from royalty to refugees.
His powerful images are part of contemporary iconography and mix a cross section of his own personal interests with commercial campaigns.
Rankin first came to prominence when he co-founded Dazed & Confused with Jefferson Hack. The magazine established its stylists in the fashion elite, broke some of today’s top designers and nurtured the budding careers of a generation of creative photographers.
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accrochage «Rouge» september - december 2012
Born in 1939 in France. Lives and works in La Garenne-Colombes.
Jean-Pierre Raynaud, in 1962, performed his first artistic act by filling a flower pot with cement. The oversized and colourful flower pot has, since then, became a recurring theme in his work. Raynaud pulls familiar objects out of their usual context - signage panels, flags and painted cans among others - to give them a new dimension. His work evolves around themes such as loneliness and death. Raynaud also gives reflections on the artist’s role in contemporary society.
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accrochage «Voyages Intérieurs» april - june 2013
Born in 1982 in Wales. Lives and works in Berlin.
Painter and sculptor Dan Rees approaches the reproduction process as an artistic medium in itself. His first works were full of references to conceptual art practices, accessible to those used to identify and interpret art history citations, but a little hermetic to the general public. Recently, Rees allusions moved towards more popular references, questioning our conventional notions of taste and everyday culture. His works show some irreverence and a certain dose of humor.
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accrochage «Lightness?» january - march 2012
Aurora Reinhard was born in 1975 in Finland. She lives and works in Helsinki.
Reinhard’s oeuvre consists of photographs, videos, performances and objects. She deals with issues of gender – how the male and female identities are constructed and represented in the society – and in particular with the taboos associated with female sexuality.
In her most recent works Reinhard studies the commercialization of the female face and body, and their use in the marketing of different products and services.
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accrochage «Lightness?» january - march 2012
Pablo Reinoso was born in 1955 in Argentina. He lives and works in Paris since 1978.
Originally a sculptor, but truly an artist, Reinoso practices his art since an early age, expressing himself in a variety of ways. His prior education in architecture doesn’t interfere with his curiosity to explore as an autodidact and to dabble in many disciplines such as: sculpture, photography, and design, as many keys to understand the world and to hold a dialogue with it, as many ways to create and respond to challenges.
Reinoso works with series that he goes through and triturates, exploring the universe and different materials. As potentially all series, those of Reinoso are not closed but still open, reflecting the permanent ‘work in progress’ which is his way of thinking.
What we find constant in his oeuvre is his endless desire to question, subverting things, using objects or materials against their customary use, moving closer contraries and always pushing things to their limits. By always taking unexpected and disconcerting paths, with a hint of humor and irony, that is to say, with seriousness and conviction.
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accrochage «Féminité 0.1» september - december 2011
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in 1841 in Limoges, France, and died in 1919.
One of the founders and leading painters of the Impressionist movement, he studied at the ‘Ecole des Beaux-Arts’ in Paris. His early works are typically Impressionist snapshots of real life, full of sparkling colors and light. The subjects he paints - pretty children, flowers and parties - have instant appeal.
By the mid-1880s, he breaks with the movement to apply a more disciplined, formal technique to portraits and figure paintings. At the same time he turned from contemporary themes to more timeless subjects, particularly nudes, but also portraits of young girls in unspecific settings. As his style became grander and simpler he also took up mythological subjects and the female type he preferred became more mature and ample.
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accrochage «Voyages Intérieurs» april - june 2013
Born in 1977 in the USA. Lives and works in New York.
Justine Reyes’ work revolves around issues of identity, history, time and our relationship to these themes in a world that has changed since 9/11. According to the artist, “not only our national identity but also how we view ourselves individually and the ways in which we relate to others have changed”. She uses photography and installation to give shape to her ideas. Reyes’ creations study the themes of family, mortality, the ephemeral and the fugacious, as well as the ideas revolving around leaving and returning home.
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