Xavier Hufkens Gallery

As a part of Brussels Art Days – 11 to 13 September 2015 – Xavier Hufkens gallery will host two artists: David Noonan and Louise Bourgeois. Since 1987, Xavier Hufkens has been one of Europe’s leading contemporary art gallery. Based in Brussels, the gallery maintains a diverse exhibition programme with solo exhibitions of the gallery artists as well as group exhibitions and special projects. The gallery deals in a distinctive combination of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video and installation.

Australian-born David Noonan artist always transforms black and white or sepia found imagery into striking collages and large-scale silk-screened tableaux on linen or films. He collects photographs, archival documents, magazines and books; relating to utopian collectives in the 1960s and 70s, theatre and dance performances, or art education, and layers selected images with others of plants, animals and buildings. Histories fuse. Any sense of time and place is blurred or displaced. The multiple appropriations blend realism, mystery and myth. The fabrics he uses as the ground for the silk-screens are rough in texture and often patched or folded. Many contain printed patterns that are inspired by Japanese textiles. Noonan also produces panelled, figurative sculptures in which cut out silhouettes of performers act out grand gestures. A carved wooden owl is a recurring motif.

Les “têtes bleues et les femmes rouges” is an exhibition of late fabric sculptures and gouaches by Louise Bourgeois (1911 to 2010). The show will be accompanied by a catalogue featuring an essay written by Philip Larratt-Smith. Bourgeois’ work is represented in the collections of important art institutions throughout the world, and continues to be exhibited on the international stage. The exhibition is the eternal oscillation between masculinity and femininity, life and death, creativity and inertia. As Bourgeois famously stated, she had her ‘pink days’ (good, productive, creative) and ‘blue days’ (unproductive, filled with despair).

Save the date:
David Noonan’s exhibition will run from 11 September to 24 October.

Les têtes bleues et les femmes rouges by Louise Bourgeois will run from 11 September to 31 October.