Nicolas DE STAËL
Nicolas de Staël, oil on canvas, 1943 It is with intense drama that the Russian-French artist Nicolas de Staël sought the impossible compromise between figuration and his new abstraction. He left tachism and worked his way through different styles, from geometry to synthetic cubism. Not categorically in movement, but looking for innovation in colour, form […]
George CONDO
George Condo, acrylic on paper, 1983 The American artist George Condo started his career in New York where he secured his place in the art world alongside iconic artists such as Haring, Warhol and Basquiat. He developed a style in which he incorporates numerous elements from classical and modern art history. The majority of his […]
Niki DE SAINT PHALLE
Niki de Saint Phalle, papier-mâché, 1966 French artist Niki de Saint Phalle grew up in the United States, under strict Catholic rules, and was a victim of sexual abuse by her father. Rebellious, she fought free and developed as an autodidact in the art world. In the early 1960s she caused a furore with her […]
Salvador DALI
Salvador Dali, watercolour, 1950 He is the omniscient and self-confident genius of painted art; an absurd and outrageous narcissist, but with brilliant technique. This surrealist devised his “critically paranoid method” based on psychoanalysis and automatism. Dali’s pieces regard the hallucinatory exaggerations of sexual, sadomasochist and neurotic ideas. ‘The Toady’ is both sinister and comical. Dali’s […]
Daniel BUREN
Daniel Buren, acrylic on striped cloth, 1984 The Frenchman Daniel Buren became known worldwide for his concept of alternating white and coloured stripes. The most important thing for Buren is the making process, in which the stripes systematically have to be 8.7 cm wide, and the context in which the work is placed. The artist […]
Joseph BEUYS
Joseph Beuys, drawing with wax, hair, a coin on paper, 1977 The German artist Joseph Beuys approached art in his own unique way. During WWII he is said to have crashed and rescued by Tatars who wrapped him in fat and felt, or so was his myth. These materials formed two important components in which […]
Wei LIU
Liu Wei, books, wood and iron, 2013 Liu Wei lives in a country that evolves at an enormous speed and belongs to the new generation of Chinese artists. The globalisation has a direct impact on the landscape, which also has socio-economic consequences. The monumental artwork ‘Library’, consisting of tens of thousands book pages pressed together, […]
René MAGRITTE
René Magritte, gouache, 1956 True to his style, the Belgian painter René Magritte is worldwide one of the most important representatives of surrealism. His work is communicative, his literary sense of humour plays with an image and he raises doubts and questions with the viewer. In many materials the artist masters the ironic contradictions and […]
CRASH
This American artist grew up in the Bronx and started to spray paint as a teenager, mostly the subway trains of New York were his target. During the 70s and 80s, New York’s artistic glory years, his CRASH-signature was seen by every subway rider. Because of gaining appreciation by galleries and at the urging of […]
Changwon LEE
Changwon Lee, reflection on wood, 2007 This South-Korean artist creates an optical illusion that arises from a reflection. His horizontal hidden mass of paint reflects on his vertical support, depending on the light and the colour. Changwon Lee plays with the support of the portrait from the transformation that each of his subjects undergoes prior […]