Tal R
Man over Board
7 July–9 September 2012
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
Grabbeplatz 4
D-40213 Düsseldorf
Hours: Tue–Sun / public holidays, 11–18
T +49 211 89 96 243
F +49 211 89 29 168
mail [at] kunsthalle-duesseldorf.de
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf shows an extensive exhibition of work by the Danish artist Tal R (b. 1967) who has taken up a professorship at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2008. Tal R has been creating an intense and exceptional oeuvre since mid of the 1990s, which has won international acclaim. The Man over Board exhibition presents the progression from his very early drawings and collages that have never been exhibited before to his most recent groups of artworks and paintings. These too are being exhibited for the first time.
The exhibition concept, which was specially designed by Tal R himself, creates formal and contextual connections between the individual working phases and individual complexes of his artworks. It creates new connections between his paintings, drawings, sculptures, and collages, and his excursions into the genre of film, that are experienced in a visual way. Platforms that resemble islands—podiums, mobile walls, and tables—each focus on a theme which is reflected in the large-format paintings and sculptures grouped around them. Rather than following a chronology, the exhibition shows how the artist developed certain strands of his oeuvre at a very early stage, which he then pursued and modified over the years. One of these “islands” is entitled The Yellow Island, and is dedicated to Tal R’s most recent artworks, which were inspired by the landscapes he experienced during his Greenland expedition last summer. Another uses small-format paintings and works on paper—both old and new—to demonstrate the narrative potential of his figure depiction. Other focuses of the exhibition include new works on paper in the ornamental style of Asiatic scrolls that tell stories; early, fragmented collages; minimalist, abstract pictures; monochrome textile works; collaged objects; and documentation of his long years of performance collaboration with Copenhagen fashion label Moonspoon Saloon.
These “islands” form what might be called the backbone of this complex exhibition, providing an illuminating commentary to the paintings and sculptures, a representative selection of which have been on display since 2000. The exhibition steers us through Tal R’s oeuvre by creating a wealth of lateral connections. It is an oeuvre that addresses many of the most controversial areas of contemporary art and contemporary life, in terms of both form and content, in a unique and playful way. Tal R’s artworks also analyse the present-day from an individual perspective in a purposeful, atmospherically, and stylistically confident manner.
A comprehensive catalogue—featuring an illustration section designed by the artist and essays by Beate Ermacora, Jacob Fabricius, Magdalena Holzhey, and Gregor Jansen—will be published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln.
The exhibition was curated by Magdalena Holzhey and Gregor Jansen in cooperation with the Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck.
