Michael Hilsman's second solo exhibition with Almine Rech opens in Paris
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Monday, November 4, 2024


Michael Hilsman's second solo exhibition with Almine Rech opens in Paris
Installation view. Photo: Ana Drittanti © Michael Hilsman - Courtesy of the Artist and Almine Rech.



PARIS.- Almine Rech ⎜ Paris, Matignon is presenting Michael Hilsman's second solo exhibition with the gallery, on view from February 24 to April 2, 2022.

Los Angeles, city of mirrors, what Jean Baudrillard called a “paradisiac and inward-looking illusion,” is everywhere and nowhere in Michael Hilsman’s paintings. The Southern California landscape in which the artist was born and raised – and where he lives and works today – appears in his work as a space for self-reflection. Like the fabricated façades of a movie set, the works’ primary illusion is their appearance of flatness, which only enhances their metaphysical depth. Bodies study their own contours in a limitless expanse. Loneliness is as abundant as sunshine. Lush gardens and empty horizons, bathed in crepuscular light, are places where the subconscious will roam.

“Man On Bed” the work from which this exhibition takes its name, is deceptively flat in both form and title. Like an analyst’s couch, the titular lounger is a device for day-dreaming. Its pink upholstery is a ground upon which Hilsman has rendered – with unsettling detail – a man’s feet protruding from beneath a blanket. Light glints off each nail and the second toe on the left foot bends at the tip, revealing a broken phalanx. Bony and elongated with sallow skin, these alien appendages are a metonym of modern man’s estrangement from his own body, a corpus increasingly objectified and pathologized. They illustrate what Hilsman describes as his effort to “foreground the physical in order to highlight the unseen.” The blanket, meanwhile, occupies central ground in the painting, a white surface applied to a canvas that’s no longer blank, its many folds inviting the projection of our mind’s eye. Like the Shroud of Turin, it bears the impression of an otherwise invisible body, a talisman of art’s power to stimulate the imagination in the midst of alienation and spiritual emptiness.

The shroud, or a proxy for it, recurs in Hilsman’s paintings, obscuring the face of a figure much like his own. See how, in Man In Orange Tree At Night, the leaves of an orange tree halo the man’s head so that we can no longer distinguish his features, like René Magritte’s Son of Man (1964). Or how, in Man In Landscape With Water, a red towel hangs like a stage curtain, behind which the figure has slipped out of view. Above him, a hammer and pair of shears hang from a clothesline. By covering the man’s face, Hilsman turns his body into another tool, a fleshy wrench grasping at loose screws. These are scenes of man comically adrift in a once-familiar place made strange.

The fragmentation or occlusion of the body also invests it with greater spiritual power. For a year, Hilsman lived in Pakistan, where the tradition of aniconism – deeply rooted in the abrahamic and particularly Islamic tradition – forbids the depiction of human faces. While ensuring the avoidance of idolatry, this prohibition also encourages us to see ourselves as our own ontological center. Hilsman was equally inspired by the delirious coexistence of different perspectives in sixteenth century paintings from the subcontinent. Classical Indian painters were able to depict scenes from multiple points in the same story within a single frame, usually on alternate planes, stretched both forwards and backwards, up close and at a distance. The scenes in Hilsman’s paintings play with time and scale in much the same way: notice, for instance, the water droplets falling from a shower head above the man in his garden, each one so perfectly whole it seems as solid as crystal, splashing into a pool that does not ripple. “Painting is a better representation of life,” he says, “because perspective is not fixed.” Time and space are always in flux, and our perceptions of them are constantly changing. Hilsman’s lost and lonely everymen, anonymized by their shifting surroundings, need only look to themselves to be found.

— Evan Moffitt, writer and critic










Today's News

February 27, 2022

Sotheby's NFT sale, expected to hit $30 million, suddenly canceled

Exhibition surveys the defining decades of the career of Jean Dubuffet

Pace opens an exhibition of rarely seen collages and sculptural wall reliefs created by Louise Nevelson

Exhibition focuses on Edvard Munch's later works and their relevance to contemporary art

Ryan Murphy announced as guest curator for Sotheby's 'Contemporary Curated' auction

Michael Hoppen Gallery opens an exhibition of photographs by Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen

Louise Giovanelli joins White Cube

Michael Hilsman's second solo exhibition with Almine Rech opens in Paris

The sweet smell of success: Records fall for Lalique perfume bottle collection

Tim Van Laere Gallery opens a solo show by Japanese-Swiss artist Leiko Ikemura

Acquisitions at ARCOmadrid 2022

The ABAA New York International Antiquarian Book Fair returns to New York from April 21-24

Laura Hanssens appointed Director of Herbert Foundation

Jona Frank collaborates with Alex Kalman to create immersive installation at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Modern Art opens an exhibition of new paintings by Julien Ceccaldi

11,000 free pairs of shoes will dance across New York

Banksy's Bomb Middle England, Toxic Rat, Morons heads to Julien's Auctions

Solo exhibition of new collage works by John Stezaker opens at The Approach

Major retrospective of Alma W. Thomas at Frist Art Museum examines artist's wide-ranging creative life

'Don Carlo' or 'Don Carlos'? Verdi comes to the Met in French

Bappi Lahiri, India's 'Disco King,' dies at 69

Bard Graduate Center opens two new exhibitions

Bonhams to offer first NFT edition of Nelson Mandela's artwork

Rising star Rachel Jones to rock Bonhams Post-War & Contemporary Art sale in London

Art In The Gambling History

Tips for saving money on your trip to Rome

Manual Wheelchairs: Everything You Need to Know

EyJay Inc. Founder and Artist is making his art known, from Toronto to the World

What to do in a case of fire?

Barrie City Council Approves Continued Work for Arts Centre

Explore the World Through Saudi Arabia Flights




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful