Torso of the Belvedere V

2014 - Painting (Painting)

270 x 183 cm

Volker Eichelmann

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In his new series of collages, Eichelmann takes his starting point from the “Belvedere Torso” in the Vatican Museum. In taking over and consuming the image of the sculpture, Eichelmann deconstructs its appearance by cutting it up, covering it, rendering the sculpture an allegorical ruin. Subverting the autonomy of the ancient sculpture in art history, Eichelmann creates a palimpsest through adding a new layer to the work in deconstructing and collapsing the famous sculpture. Through the employment of pre-painted paper, the artist recreates the Hellenistic sculpture out of various recycled images. Thus, constructing a painting out of readymade marking. To avoid distance from the work, the artist prefers to work on the floor, being literally in the work. By enlarging the image of the sculpture, he renders illegible, changing the meaning of the work to become a distant and banal disfigurement of that which the occidental art historical canon touts as high art. “The Belvedere Torso” is employed as a sophisticated reference to the issues surrounding the continued use of historically famous artworks in contemporary society. In “Torso of the Belvedere II”, Eichelmann forms new meaning to the work through a metaphysical restoration.

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Volker Eichelmann (b. Hamburg, Germany, 1973) lives and works in London. Working across various media including video, painting, photography, Eichelmann has recently started experimenting with collage. Eichelmann practice seeks out the forgotten and over looked techniques of the past to consider a contemporary critique of artistic precedence. His series of text-paintings combine drawing, painting and collaged text to present autobiographical exclamations gathered from their original context and transformed into poetic evocations of distant environments, contexts and encounters. Eichelmann recent works are play with the ideas of construction and deconstruction through his technique. His explorations of collage, a medium central to the early twentieth century, is an innovative deconstruction of the canon of art history.

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Colors:

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• art_history.n.01
• metaphysics.n.01
• restoration.n.01
• reinterpretation.n.01
• deconstruct.v.01
• palimpsest.n.01