PORTRAIT AND LANDSCAPE
Curator: Esther Schlicht
SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE | Römerberg | 60311 Frankfurt/Main
6. Okt. - 8. Jan. 2012
INFORMATION
The Icelandic artist Erró is one of the great solitary figures of twentieth- century art. At once Pop and Baroque, eye-catching and narrative, critical of society and humorous, moral and inscrutable, over the past fifty years he has produced an opulent, unmistakable oeuvre that resists all categorization. His critical narrative collages reproduce in painting combinations of pictorial elements from various popular sources to create eloquent, often disturbing tableaux. As reflections on great social themes such as politics, war, sexuality, science, and art, these dense visual arrangements seem to create a comprehensive atlas of images of the modern world.
On the occasion of Iceland’s turn as guest of honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the SCHIRN will show Erró’s series “Scapes” and, for the first time, the artist’s entire cycle of “Monsters” from 1968. This bizarre series of double portraits confronts the official likenesses of prominent persons with a second, monstrously distorted face. Erró films from the 1960s will be shown as a link between the two work groups.
CATALOG
Erró ranks among the great solitary figures of twentieth-century art. At once pop and baroque, eye-catching and narrative, critical of society and humorous, moral and inscrutable, he has produced an opulent, unmistakable oeuvre refusing all categorization in the course of the past fifty years. Combining pictorial elements from a wide variety of popular sources reproduced in painting, his critical narrative collages unfold eloquent tableaus: reflecting essential social issues such as politics, war, science, art, and sexuality, Erró’s dense visual arrangements seem to be aimed at assembling a comprehensive atlas of images of the modern world. The publication presents the artist’s series of landscapes “Scapes” and — for the first time — his entire series of portraits “The Monsters” from 1967/68. Linking the two work groups, selected films by Erró from the 1960s will be screened.
Edited by Esther Schlicht and Max Hollein.
With a preface by Max Hollein, texts by Esther Schlicht and Wolfgang Ullrich, and a chronology by Danielle Kvaran. German and English edition, 128 pages, 86 illustrations and 270 film stills, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-7757-3168-3, 24.80 €
