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Lot Essay
Held in the same private collection since its execution in 2017, It Almost Seemed a Lily III, is a striking example of Berlinde De Bruyckere’s haunting material imagination. Mounted to the wall and spanning a height of almost three and a half metres, it presents a rectangular, wooden frame on which a coarse relief of wallpaper, textiles, wax, iron and epoxy is arranged. Working with neutral shades of taupe and russet brown, De Bruyckere draws our attention to a fantastically tactile surface that is enlivened with dynamic rips, peels and ruptures. The Belgian artist is well-known for her use of aged and worn organic matter—she often incorporates fabric, resin, wax, hair and animal skins—to create large-scale sculptures that are at once corporeal and ethereally fragile. With its own distinctly physical presence, the present work takes its name from Ovid’s Metamorphosis and alludes to the transformation of Hyacinthus into a flower after his death. It forms part of a series of sculptures made for an exhibition at the Museum Hof van Busleyden in the Netherlands in 2018.
Born in Ghent in 1964, the daughter of a butcher, De Bruyckere recalls becoming accustomed early in life to dead animals and carcasses. ‘I am not afraid of dead bodies’, she says, ‘I am used to seeing them’ (B. De Bruyckere quoted in, I. Burley, ‘Berlinde De Bruyckere: Three Sculptures’, AnOther, 4 December 2012). Her early sculptures comprised of wax body parts, melted and twisted into strange physiological forms. Soon after, she began to work with animal skins. Yet, drawing from a wide-range of sources—from the European Old Masters, Dutch still-life painting, and Christian iconography to ancient mythology—De Bruyckere searches for meaning, beauty, and pathos in death. Hovering off the ground, It Almost Seemed a Lily III holds an enigmatic space between real and mythological worlds, and looms before the viewer like a doorway.
De Bruyckere describes herself as a plunderer of material and ideas, and considers her practice to be a method of transformation or renewal. Favouring old, used objects, she weaves histories, narratives and provenance through each of her sculptural assemblages. Here, with its grand, bevelled edges and monumental form, the present work takes its inspiration from the Museum Hof van Busleyden’s collection of ‘Enclosed Gardens’—sets of extraordinary polychrome wooden cabinets created in the sixteenth century, which open to reveal paradisiacal wonderlands of flowers, fruits and insects made of wire, wax and gold leaf. It is an altar of sorts, invoking a sense of awe and apprehension within its viewer. The artist recently opened her exhibition City of Refuge III within the shadowy, sixteenth-century spaces of Venice’s San Giorgio Maggiore. One of the Venice Biennale’s most significant collateral events this year, it cements her position as one of Belgium’s most influential artists working today.
Born in Ghent in 1964, the daughter of a butcher, De Bruyckere recalls becoming accustomed early in life to dead animals and carcasses. ‘I am not afraid of dead bodies’, she says, ‘I am used to seeing them’ (B. De Bruyckere quoted in, I. Burley, ‘Berlinde De Bruyckere: Three Sculptures’, AnOther, 4 December 2012). Her early sculptures comprised of wax body parts, melted and twisted into strange physiological forms. Soon after, she began to work with animal skins. Yet, drawing from a wide-range of sources—from the European Old Masters, Dutch still-life painting, and Christian iconography to ancient mythology—De Bruyckere searches for meaning, beauty, and pathos in death. Hovering off the ground, It Almost Seemed a Lily III holds an enigmatic space between real and mythological worlds, and looms before the viewer like a doorway.
De Bruyckere describes herself as a plunderer of material and ideas, and considers her practice to be a method of transformation or renewal. Favouring old, used objects, she weaves histories, narratives and provenance through each of her sculptural assemblages. Here, with its grand, bevelled edges and monumental form, the present work takes its inspiration from the Museum Hof van Busleyden’s collection of ‘Enclosed Gardens’—sets of extraordinary polychrome wooden cabinets created in the sixteenth century, which open to reveal paradisiacal wonderlands of flowers, fruits and insects made of wire, wax and gold leaf. It is an altar of sorts, invoking a sense of awe and apprehension within its viewer. The artist recently opened her exhibition City of Refuge III within the shadowy, sixteenth-century spaces of Venice’s San Giorgio Maggiore. One of the Venice Biennale’s most significant collateral events this year, it cements her position as one of Belgium’s most influential artists working today.