This major new exhibition looks at Rodin’s use of clay and plaster, particularly in capturing movement, light and volume. It also spotlights the complex dynamics of the workshop and Rodin’s relationships with his models and collaborators, including his ill-fated lover and fellow sculptor Camille Claudel.
The Making of Rodin takes its cue from the artist’s landmark exhibition at the Pavillon de l’Alma in 1900, where he exhibited his life’s work almost entirely in plaster. Many of the star exhibits of 1900 such as the monumental casts of Balzac (1898) or The Inner Voice (1896) are now on show at Tate Modern. It’s a feast for the eyes.
On display alongside fragmented body parts, including heads, hands, arms, legs and feet, are preparatory models, archival images, a series of delicate watercolours in which he further experimented with bodily forms, and The Kiss (1900-04), the only marble on show.
Displayed together, Rodin’s ghostly casts reveal the extent of his restless, innovative creativity — and, most importantly, his pioneering vision of the human body for a modern age.
There hasn’t been a major Dubuffet exhibition in the UK for more than 50 years, but the Barbican has more than made up for it with this brilliant retrospective charting the extraordinary life and work of the ‘Art Brut’ pioneer.
The vast show explores Dubuffet’s radical postwar vision of a raw, gritty beauty and his endless experimentation with tools and materials, notably his mixing of paint with found materials such as glass, pebbles, string and gravel.
There are more than 150 works on display, from early portraits and lithographs to butterfly assemblages and giant doodle canvases. There are also two rooms of works from Dubuffet’s personal collection of ‘Art Brut’ (literally ‘raw’ art), including pieces by the medium Laure Pigeon.
‘Art should always make you laugh a little and fear a little,’ Dubuffet said. ‘Anything but bore.’ Needless to say, this exhibition does just that.
