Published 1 SEP 2024
Garden of Earthly Delight
With works by Willi Baumeister, William N. Copley, Asana Fujikawa, Karin Kneffel, Thomas Müller, Hartmut Neumann, Claire de Santa Coloma, Cornelius Völker
Opening – 13 SEP 2024, 6-10 pm
14 SEP until 26 OCT 2024
Asana Fujikawa
am Abend, 2022
Keramik, glasiert
32 x 25 x 26 cm
© Asana Fujikawa / Courtesy Galerie Friese
William N. Copley’s painting “Garden of Earthly Delight” forms the starting point of this eponymous group exhibition at Galerie Friese. In his work from 1960, Copley (1919-1996), an artist from the circle of Max Ernst, Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, cites Hieronymus Bosch’s painting of the same name.
Copley adapted the theme in his characteristically ironic pictorial language to a garden of earthly delight without the depiction of hell: People are shown swimming, rowing, playing music, flying, dancing on a globe – all beneath the auspices of women. The centre of the work shows an army of women holding a sign reading “Non” and an opposing army of men with a sign that reads “Oui“. The battle of the sexes, a reocurring theme for Copley, is here shown as a peaceful coexistence in which women make all the rules.
In the exhibition, the theme of earthly delights is freely associated with works by Willli Baumeister, Asana Fujikawa, Karin Kneffel, Thomas Müller, Hartmut Neumann, Claire de Santa Coloma and Cornelius Völker. Sumptuous bouquets, surreal plant life, fairytale figures and swimmers lying in the sun speak of a lust for tradition, sensuous experience and the power of art to create mysterious worlds.