Satyrs Taking Sleeping Venus by Surprise | Nicolas Poussin | Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa
Past exhibition

Riotous Baroque: From Cattelan to Zurbarán

06.14.2013 - 10.06.2013

This exhibition, co-organized by Kunsthaus Zürich and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, confronts works created in the 17th century with contemporary pieces in an attempt to extricate the concept of the Baroque from formal clichés and the way it is traditionally perceived. The show does not approach the Baroque as pomp, ornamentation, and gold, but as a manifestation of precarious vitality—vitality hailed, rediscovered or lost, projected and threatened by death.

Including works by 17th century masters, such as Francisco de Zurbarán, Alessandro Magnasco, and Jan Steen, and pieces by contemporary artists like Maurizio Cattelan, Paul McCarthy, and Cindy Sherman, the exhibition design, influenced by cinema, is conceived to enable the two realities, with all their differences and affinities, to cross-fertilize and permeate each other, inviting the audience to see them in a whole new light.


 

Nicolas Poussin
Satyrs Taking Sleeping Venus by Surprise, ca. 1625 (detail)
Oil on canvas
77 x 100 cm
Photo © Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland

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