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Item: The Kiss

1986

Sculpture, 432 x 102.5 x 244 cm.
Materials: wood, textiles, glass, silver, fluid

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. BK5216_M29).

The Kiss from 1986 – with red drapes and a striking bowl, filled with a clear blue liquid – is a conceptual reconstruction of a classic still life. As in almost all of her work, the artist here creates a hybrid of painting and sculpture. The Flemish Primitives of the fifteenth century and the baroque painters of the seventeenth are important sources of inspiration, which is reflected in, among other things, the considerable amount of staging that goes into each of the works. The round shapes of the velvet and the wood are at odds with the strict geometric construction of the black triangle. The confrontation between the hard and soft materials, and the concealing yet simultaneously revealing character of the red velvet give the work a romantic tension reminiscent of that between Eros and Thanatos.

Text: Hans Willemse
Translations: Michael Meert