CONTEMPORARY ASSIGNMENTS Third Show to Open in Rome

Hans Op de Beeck In Silent Conversation with Correggio

Made possible by the Borghese Gallery, MAXXI and UniCredit Group

Rome, Uccelliera di Villa Borghese May 29 to October 4, 2009

Press release

(April 24, 2009) – Following the successful exhibitions of vedovamazzei in conjunction with Raphael (2007) and Giulio Paolini with Canova (2008), this year the Borghese Gallery is featuring Belgian artist Hans Op de Beeck reflecting on the work of Correggio. The show is structured as a silent conversation with Correggio and forms a part of the Contemporary Assignments project (Committenze Contemporanee), which invites the public to explore the great wealth of the Borghese Gallery’s collection.

Launched on the tenth anniversary of the gallery’s reopening, Contemporary Assignments is part of the Ten Great Shows series of programs (Dieci Grandi Mostre). Accordingly, it consists of ten exhibitions, each highlighting a great artist whose work is prominent in the gallery’s historic collection, including Correggio, Titian, Bernini and Caravaggio. The program intensifies the experience of viewing these masterpieces by incorporating the perspectives of contemporary artists. This approach facilitates a fresh perspective on historic artworks, while simultaneously promoting the work and broadening the audience of today’s artists.

The works created for the program are commissioned by the Borghese Gallery in cooperation with MAXXI the National Museum of 21st Century Arts, and UniCredit & Art, UniCredit Group’s pan-European project to promote artistic creativity and the dissemination of contemporary languages. In the framework of this innovative partnership between public institutions and the private sector, a joint commission annually selects an artist to be featured in Contemporary Assignments.

This third edition showcases Hans Op de Beeck, an internationally renowned Belgian artist who has participated in the 2006 Shanghai Biennale, the 2008 Singapore Biennale and recently had a one-person exhibition at Galleria Continua in Beijing. In June, he will play a major role in the Art Unlimited section at Art Basel and will participate in the group exhibition In-Finitum to be on exhibit at the Palazzo Fortuny and also included among the events of the Venice Biennale.

As with the projects by vedovamazzei and Paolini, Op de Beeck’s installation will be loaned on a long-term basis by UniCredit Group to the MAXXI in Rome. The loan is part of a broader program to strengthen the foundations of the museum’s collection.

Op de Beeck has entitled his work, created specifically for this exhibition, In Silent Conversation with Correggio. There are two groups of pieces in the exhibition, each comprised of three large black and white watercolors. Thematically the works focus on deserted interior and exterior scenes, referring to the intimate and withdrawn nature of the Correggio’s oeuvres.

Although Op de Beeck takes a multi-disciplinary approach, the spirit of his work is rooted in figurative painting. He employs free associations and photography to isolate, translate and abstract figures, settings, objects and other details from Correggio’s paintings, synthetizing them in new compositions. Op de Beeck executed his watercolors in black and white, a choice that provided a formal starting point for his approach and which stemmed from the features of Correggio’s images that most engaged his interest. These features were not the overt subjects of the paintings, which, as with most of Correggio’s contemporaries, were drawn from mythological and biblical themes; nor did he focus on the dynamism of the master’s forms or the richness of colors. Rather, Op de Beeck was attracted to an atmosphere of silent, sweet and sensual melancholy that pervades the Renaissance Master’s work, a characteristic that he hopes to bring into sharper focus through his installation.

Curator and consultant Laura Barreca of the MAXXI has provided support to the artist in the implementation of his project.

MAXXI’s Educational Department will organize a program of events, free of charge, to explore and analyze the work in greater detail. The show is also being supported through a catalogue.

Thanks to Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin, and Academia Belgica in Rome.

BIOGRAPHY Hans Op de Beeck, born in 1969 in Turnhout, Belgium, currently lives and works in Brussels.

Hans Op de Beeck’s work covers a wide spectrum of media, ranging from installation art, sculpture, video, animated film and photography to drawing, painting and set design. He builds and stages contemporary, fictive, urban and household locations, situations and characters that are familiar to the viewer. These include both lonely spots for reflection and crowded spaces, populated at times by bungling characters who tell us something about the way we live today, the paths we follow and how we attempt – with great ineptitude – to deal with time, space and each other. A vein of melancholy imbues his work, along with a spirit of romanticism expressed in the form of stereotypes that he reintroduces to us as modern-day values.

Between 2002 and 2003, Op de Beeck worked in residence at MoMA - P.S.1 in New York. In 2001 he won the Prix Jeune Peinture Belge 2001 and in 2006 he was given the Eugène Baie 2003-2005 award. On April 30, 2009, he will receive the Catholic University of Leuven Culture Prize 2009- 2010.

Op de Beeck has taken part in numerous international solo and group exhibitions. His work has been shown in galleries and museums that include the Reina Sofia (Madrid), the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (Arizona), the ZKM (Karlsruhe), the Kunstverein (Hannover), the Whitechapel Art Gallery (London), the S.M.A.K. (Ghent) and P.S.1 (New York). Recent one-person exhibitions include: Staging Silence at Galleria Continua, Beijing (2009); Location (6), an installation presented as part of the Holland Festival, Amsterdam (2008); Celebration at Galleria Continua, San Gimignano (2008); the traveling show Extensions at the Treasury of St. Peter, Leuven, and at the Centraal Museum, Utrecht (2007). At the upcoming Art Basel fair (June 10-14), Op de Beeck will present the monumental sculptural installation Location (6) in the Art Unlimited section of the fair.

Information

Exhibition Hans Op de Beeck In Silent Conversation with Correggio

Venue Uccelliera di Villa Borghese, Galleria Borghese Piazzale Scipione Borghese 5, Rome (I)

Term May 29 to October 4, 2009

Promoted by Galleria Borghese MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Arts UniCredit & Art

Curated by Laura Barreca

Thanks to Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin Academia Belgica, Rome

Press Conference Thursday, May 28, 2009 – 11.30 a.m.

Vernissage Thursday, May 28, 2009 6.00 p.m., by invitation only, a conversation with the artist

Opening hours Tuesday to Sunday, from 9.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. Closed on Monday

Admission fee 2 Euros added to the entrance tickets for the museum

Educational project curated by MAXXI’s Educational Department

Information Galleria Borghese Ph. +39 068413979 Fax +39 068840756 www.galleriaborghese.it [email protected]

MAXXI Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo www.maxxi.parc.beniculturali.it [email protected]

UniCredit & Art [email protected]

Press Office Studio Pesci Ph. +39 051 269267 [email protected]