Braco Dimitrijevic — Triptychos Post Historicus — Torri — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: October 15 → November 12, 2011

In 1976 Braco Di­mi­tri­je­vic, al­rea­dy well known for his Ca­sual Pas­ser-​by works, made a ges­ture wi­thout pre­cedent: in Na­tio­nal ga­le­rie in Ber­lin he inclu­ded ori­gi­nal pain­tings of Kan­dins­ky, Mon­drian, Pi­cas­so, Monet and Manet into his own ins­tal­la­tions. The ins­tal­la­tions for which the ar­tist coi­ned the ge­ne­ric title Trip­ty­chos Post His­to­ri­cus, in­clu­ded pain­tings by mo­dern mas­ters to­ge­ther with eve­ry­day ob­jects, fruits and ve­ge­tables.

Ac­cor­ding to the ar­tist, the time of his­to­ry is the time of di­vi­sion and clas­si­fi­ca­tions of know­ledge, of crea­ting spe­cia­li­zed ins­ti­tu­tions, one of which is the mu­seum. Di­mi­tri­je­vic’s Trip­ty­chos Post His­to­ri­cus tend to abo­lish these Car­te­sian clas­si­fi­ca­tions by pre­sen­ting to­ge­ther on the same plat­form a mu­seum pain­ting, which re­pre­sents high art, an or­di­na­ry ob­ject which stands for eve­ry­day life and la­bour, and fruit which re­pre­sents na­ture.

With this conti­nuing body of works, the ar­tist re­vi­sits both his­to­ry of man­kind and his­to­ry of art, crea­ti­ve­ly in­cor­po­ra­ting mas­ter­works such as Leo­nar­do’s Ma­do­na, Saint Ann and Jesus, Ma­le­vich’s Red Square, Ru­bens’ Rape of Eu­rope, David’s Death of Marat or Tur­ner’s St. Be­ne­dict, Loo­king To­ward Fu­si­na into new vi­sual and concep­tual struc­tures.

The ar­tist not only ques­tions fe­tish sta­tus of the mas­ter works but also shakes up the ac­cep­ted hie­rar­chy in which art or culture would be at the top and na­ture at the bot­tom of our value scale. Once pla­ced on the same plat­form, com­plex sym­bo­lic in­ter­play de­ve­lops bet­ween them.

“Our world is not made of mas­ter pieces, nor of bi­cycles or apples but of all these things to­ge­ther”, he says.

Whil­st Di­mi­tri­je­vic’s Ca­sual pas­ser-​by se­ries made an im­por­tant in­fluence on art in pu­blic space ten­den­cy, his in­ter­ven­tions in the mu­seum col­lec­tions ir­re­ver­si­bly chan­ged re­la­tion­ship bet­ween contem­po­ra­ry art and old mu­seums col­lec­tions.

Past ex­hi­bi­tions in the last three de­cades in­clude mas­ter works from mu­seum col­lec­tions of Tate Gal­le­ry Lon­don, Gug­gen­heim Mu­seum New York, Musée Na­tio­nal d’Art Mo­derne, Centre Georges Pom­pi­dou, Paris, Lud­wig Mu­seum Co­logne, Mu­seum Mo­der­ner Kunst Vien­na, Van Ab­be­mu­seum Eind­ho­ven, the Louvre, State Rus­sian Mu­seum, among­st the others.

For this ex­hi­bi­tion the gal­le­ry will present a new Trip­ty­chos Post His­to­ri­cus ins­tal­la­tion with a 1942 Man­tille by Fran­cis Pi­ca­bia along with as se­ries of wa­ter­co­lours.

The ar­tist makes the wa­ter­co­lours as pro­jects for fu­ture ins­tal­la­tions or as some ima­gi­na­ry constel­la­tions free not only of ins­ti­tu­tio­nal constraints but also of low of gra­vi­ty.