Berlinde De Bruyckere: The horror and beauty of life in Belgian artist’s profound exhibition at Bozar

The first large-scale exhibition in Brussels dedicated to Berlinde De Bruyckere offers a new and consummate perspective of the past 25 years of the internationally-reputed contemporary artist’s career.

In Khorós at Bozar, the Belgian shows some of her most iconic sculptures and installations alongside new and lesser-known works, including collages, intimate small-format drawings and paintings.

They are presented in dialogue with other artists – kindred spirits – that have inspired her, from the Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach to musician and poet Patti Smith, writer and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini and her artist husband Peter Buggenhout. The Horta-designed Art Deco architecture of the exhibition space is another point of communication. Together, these non linear yet multiple strands of conversation form a polyphony of voices, hence the exhibition title evoking a Greek chorus.

De Bruyckere pursues fundamental and universal questions around life and death via a powerful duality: pain and suffering contrasted with beauty, desire and hope. These intertwined themes create emotive displays reflecting the reality of the contemporary world. From the visceral images of a suspended horse carcass, life-like corpses and a gnarled tree assuming the position of martyrdom to delicate yet charged erotic images, the artist unremittingly solicits a reflection on the human condition.

Nature, alongside Christian iconography and classical mythology, is another constant inspiration. Her predilection for natural materials such as wood, wax, fabric and animal skins encompasses recycled objects to create potent layers of meaning. Their union suggests the constant metamorphoses of humans and animals in the lifecycle of healing and rebirth.

If life and death are inextricably linked, the joy of living is omnipresent. “It has always been present, but it has never been brought to the forefront. Eros and Thanatos [the joy of living and death] are elements that constantly nourish me,” says De Bruyckere, who and remains rooted in her hometown of Ghent.

Exhibiting at Bozar had long been a dream even if the low-ceilinged horizontal exhibition space – comprising 11 rooms – presented a challenge for her vertically-orientated large-scale installations. She purposefully opens and closes the show with three striking and symbolic works, including Lost I (pictured), counterpoised with a display case of Pasolini’s photos. “The last works you see are also the first in the exhibition. I think you will have another view when you see them again,” says De Bruyckere, underlining the cyclical approach to her work.

Floral themes dominate the first room. Inspired by the 16th-century Enclosed Gardens altarpiece cabinets, she created her own detailed version of the paradisical collection. It includes lilies, a favourite flower, serving as a spiritual motif for life and rebirth. De Bruyckere boasts a large collection of photos. “I take an image of flowers not when they are strong and beautiful but when the petals are falling down and they are so fragile, I see something like dead skin.”

Her habit of textured layering is evident in It almost seemed a lily, which combines textile, iron and wax with aged floorboards and floral wallpaper recuperated from her home. De Bruyckere confesses to being a hoarder of worn and neglected items. “There’s always something that attracts me, I see the beauty and potential inside and can add something according to how I feel.”

The gigantic wax cast San Sebastien (pictured) is bathed in light thanks to Horta’s quadrilateral skylights. It’s an example of the artist’s singular approach to moulding found objects; she stumbled upon the original fallen tree while walking in France. The craggy bark exterior embellished by pointed pieces of wood and textile evoke the Christian martyr, while the imposing trunk stands on a wooden frame to indicates that the subject is something other than a tree.

In Courtyard Tales (pictured), layered blankets appear like shrouds in the poignant series. The household items signifying comfort and shelter were weathered in the courtyard of De Bruyckere’s farmhouse studio. “I left them outside to fall apart to show the wounds that nature gives them.” Ragged, gaping holes, colours muted by the elements and mysterious bulges imbue them with a vulnerability and suffering indicative of a failed society. Again, a familiar item assumes another more ubiquitous identity after De Bruyckere’s attentive transformation.

A dead foal is splayed on a table, its spindly legs bound and dropping off the edge in a pitiful display. On the wall hangs Buggenhout’s abstract mixed media I am the Tablet #8 while Patti Smith reads from her poem The Woolgatherers. “She’s a great example of what an artist can be,” says an admirative De Bruyckere. The heightened contrast between the works is surprising, although luminous Carrara marble links the foal with Buggenhout’s work. It was the latter’s suggestion that the material would best offset the animal’s pale white legs. “It shows the love and trust between us... Living and working with an artist for over 40 years is an endless dialogue.”

This is followed by Arcangelo III (pictured), from a series of enigmatic faceless angels created for one of her two participations in the prestigious Venice Biennale. Inspired by Giorgione’s 16th century painting of an angel consoling Christ by, it was prompted by news images of Covid patients having to spending their final moments with caregivers rather than their families. This version is placed on an oak plinth recovered from the moat of a medieval castle; the aged wood etched with lines reflecting the drapes of the wax and wool shroud above.  

In a darkened room, sexual forces and desire take centre stage in a series sparked by a visit to Anderlecht’s abattoir to collect animals skins. Says De Bruyckere: “I can still feel how I felt, surrounded by so much death. The skins on top of each other were like a metaphor for death.” She returned with her photographer friend Myriam Devriendt to record the experience, resulting in a video installation. “I was watching this man work, throwing salt on the piles of skins, like spreading seeds or semen.” The act of spreading the skins on top of huge columns inspired her accompanying Penthesilia installations.

Eroticism continues in a series of drawings where flowers are transformed into male and female sexual organs. Her Met tere huid (pictured) sculpture resembles a vagina; visiting the temples of India when she was younger was a culture shock. "We went to the temple of Shiva where people poured milk on the phallus symbol and then food and flowers. I had never seen that before, having grown up in a Christian family and institutions.

Two bodies become one “in a very fragile moment between humans” in the intricate and revealing sculpture Into One-Another I to P.P.P that is shown in dialogue with Pasolini and Lucas Cranach the Elder’s ornate painting Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist (pictured). “He really changed my work,” explains De Bruyckere, who researched his technique for painting skin with different layers to achieve transparency and light.

For the final space, the artist was asked what visual message she wanted to leave for visitors. Despite her fear that she did not have the time to offer new works to the exhibition, De Bruyckere succeeded in completing two framed collages in the Plunder series. Again, everyday or discarded items are favoured, in particular a roll of lino. Old religious fabrics previously purchased at auction provide a backdrop, injecting a further layer of resonance as well as contrasting texture and colour to create exquisite pieces.

They are presented with a recent erotically-charged flower series and one of her earliest sculptures Fran Dics, dating from 2001 (pictured). “I only made one figure like her,” says De Bruyckere of the stocky wax character with her head thrown forward and long hair concealing her face. “She’s a tough one and this is the message that I want to give. She is still there, strong and fertile.”

A digital visitor guide provides narrative context for the works and a complementary multi-disciplinary programme accompanies the exhibition. It is the first in a new series of shows at Bozar called Conversation Pieces, which invite an artist to enter in dialogue with the work of another artist.

Berlinde De Bruyckere. Khorós
Until 31 August
Bozar
Rue Ravenstein 23
Brussels

Photos: Courtesy the artist ©Myriam Devriendt; Lucas Cranach - Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist - 1530s © Szépművészeti Múzeum/Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest