Desire: Vendelmans
Past exhibition
Press release
Private view Friday 9th August 6-8pm
By appointment.
Desire is a heart casting a lasso towards the object it yearns for.
This object can be a physical being but also an idea, or a feeling. Desire exists entirely in the space in between the heart and the object. Yet despite its certain course, it never arrives at its destination. The lasso does not reach whatever it is being thrown at, and in this uncompletedness, is able to continue existing.
In Nadja - ANDRÉ BRETON’s Surrealist love story - it is written that ‘I am the soul in limbo’. While in LUIS BUÑUEL’s That Obscure Object of Desire, the protagonist’s beloved CONCHITA is able to manipulate him by forever tempting - but never giving into - his lust for her. Theirs is a relationship consisting of nothing but desire. These two examples, one aimed at love and the other at sex, are perhaps the most rudimentary concepts associated with desire. But equally strong can one’s desire be for freedom or revenge, for understanding or tenderness.
It is what brings together these two wildly different artists, shown side by side for the first time in the present exhibition: French photographer LAURE ALBIN GUILLOT (1879-1962) and Swedish painter EUGÈNE JANSSON (1862-1915). Through a selection of their work - photography of female nudes and drawings of male nudes respectively - we contemplate the roles of artist and sitter, the desire to be seen, and the desire to be understood.