René Daniëls

20 Sep-16 Nov 2024

PV 19 Sep 2024, 6-8pm

Overview

Modern Art is delighted to announce an exhibition of paintings by René Daniëls, his third with the gallery. The seven paintings, most of which have never been exhibited, span the formative period of 1980 to 1984, prior to and prefiguring the development of his signature 'bowtie' motif. Early works from this period are mainly figurative, notably loose in brushwork, and made up of several layers often revealing traces of underpaintings. Superimposed figures appear as dreamlike apparitions, floating over the canvas and dissolving into inanimate objects. Together this body of work shows how Daniëls used mysticism, ceremonial rituals, as well as woodland and jungle environments as iconography to probe the lexicons of art history and mechanisms of the art market.

Born in Eindhoven in 1950, where he continues to live and work, Daniëls studied at the Royal Academy of Arts and Design in Hertogenbosch and from 1983-84 attended the studio program at MoMA PS1, New York. He participated in numerous international exhibitions throughout the 1980s, among them Zeitgeist (1982), documenta 7 (1982), and the 17th Bienal de São Paulo (1983). He resumed drawing in the 1990s, and painting in 2006. In recent years, his work has been the subject of several major presentations including a 2010 survey of his work at Camden Art Centre, London in 2010, a 2011-12 survey at Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; and the 2018 exhibition Fragments of an Unfinished Novel at WIELS, Brussels, which travelled to MAMCO, Geneva, the following year. Daniëls’ works are held in collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Groninger Museum, Groningen; Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Hague; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; the Städel Museum, Frankfurt; S.M.A.K., Ghent; Tate, London; the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

Artists