Deeply moving figures
«The Mystery of the Body» Berlinde De Bruyckere in Dialogue with Lucas Cranach and Pier Paolo Pasonli
The Kunstmuseum Bern is presenting the largest monographic exhibition of works by Berlinde De Bruyckere (b. 1964) hitherto shown in Europe. The Flemish artist creates deceptively real sculptures and touching drawings of human bodies suffering. The presentation brings them into a dialogue with the works of the German Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach and the Italian film maker Pier Paolo Pasolini.
De Bruyckere’s sculptural work combines religious visual subject matter with topical media images. In doing so she entrenches the Christian motif of people suffering in the present. De Bruyckere's preoccupation with the body raises questions relating to ethics in society today and to the value we attach to corporal experience.
In this context De Bruyckere has sought inspiration in Lucas Cranach for the last few years. Against a background steeped in Martin Luther’s theology, Cranach’s pictures engage with the experience of corporality, leading us to ask fundamental questions about the human condition.
The dialogue also introduces a third approach by including Pier Paolo Pasolini. Through him, artistic discourse on the body acquires distinctly political contours as terrain into which power and consumer interests are projected.
Dr. Cornelia Wieg, Stiftung Moritzburg Halle Kunstmuseum des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt Dr. Cornelia Wieg, Stiftung Moritzburg Halle Kunstmuseum des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt Vlaamse Overheid
Stiftung GegenwART 
