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Métamorphoses, in Rodin’s Studio
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal (Canada), Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond (USA), Peabody Essex Museum, SALEM (USA)
Rodin completely revitalized the very language of sculpture with his passion for the creative act. The ongoing interplay of accidents and chance in his work, his figures fragmented only to be reconstituted through this ingenious “cobbling together,” enabled him to interpolate his work in an endless flow of creation. He was at the forefront of twentieth-century aesthetic thought: the role of the pedestal, enlargement, assemblage, ready-made…
The topic of metamorphosis is directly related to his work, without model or witness, in the privacy of the studio. Fragile plasters as well as bronzes, marble figures, drawings, watercolours and photographs all attest to this creative intensity.
But “studio” must also be understood as the small artistic community that worked for and around the master. It consisted of practitioners of specific trades to whom we owe the transformation of one material to another, one dimension to another, under his attentive guidance. The thematic exhibition layout will shed light on the various processes of reprise and transformation and will take stock of the sculptor’s prodigious creativity.
Organized by the Musée Rodin, Paris, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, this exhibition will feature masterpieces like the 200 or so figures fleeing The Gates of Hell, a work Rodin was to draw from for the rest of his career, and The Walking Man.
CURATORS
Sophie Biass-Fabiani, curator, musée Rodin
Nathalie Bondil, director, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Exhibition(s) location(s)
Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal
1380 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montréal, QC H3G 1J5, Canada
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
200 N Arthur Ashe Blvd, Richmond, VA 23220, USA
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem
161 Essex St, Salem, MA 01970, USA
Dates
From May 30 to October 18, 2015, From November 21, 2015 to March 13, 2016, From May 14 to September 5, 2016
