Michaël Borremans
Merry Missile, 2021
Oil on wood panel
7 5/8 x 5 3/8 inches
19.4 x 13.5 cm
Framed: 14 7/8 x 12 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches
37.8 x 31.8 x 4.4 cm
Signed, titled, dated, and inscribed verso
$180,000
Framed
Blurb
Michaël Borremans's (b. 1963) innovative approach to painting combines technical mastery with subject matter that defies straightforward interpretation. His charged canvases address universal themes that seem to resonate with a specifically contemporary relevance.
The present painting is from a recent series titled Merry Missiles. In these enigmatic compositions, Borremans continues his exploration of artifice, staging constructions that are derived from historical depictions of the human figure. He subverts classification by shifting between portrait and still life genres—using the represented as both surrogate and pure form. Observing how sitters and their accoutrements have been portrayed in the Western art-historical tradition, he further reduces the represented object to a motif and shape that reappear in works from other series.
The lack of specific context in the work provides a neutral, yet intensely charged atmosphere. Like archetypes capable of embodying shifting meanings, the portrayed missile becomes a mold for the human condition, at once satirical, tragic, humorous, and above all, contradictory. As Jeffrey Grove elaborates, "Characterized by an ineffable sense of dislocation, his work is unified by a visual syntax that captures Borremans's subjects in compelling states of intermediacy and indeterminacy. His work appears to explore complicated psychological states, yet these manifestations confuse simple logic. Intentionally deploying inexplicable signifiers colliding in ambiguous spaces of unsettling beauty, Borremans fulfills a wish 'to create an atmosphere outside time, a space where time has been cancelled.'"1
1 Jeffrey Grove, “Not Too Sweet,” in Jeffrey Grove, ed., Michaël Borremans: As sweet as it gets. Exh. cat. (Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2014), p. 11.
The present painting is from a recent series titled Merry Missiles. In these enigmatic compositions, Borremans continues his exploration of artifice, staging constructions that are derived from historical depictions of the human figure. He subverts classification by shifting between portrait and still life genres—using the represented as both surrogate and pure form. Observing how sitters and their accoutrements have been portrayed in the Western art-historical tradition, he further reduces the represented object to a motif and shape that reappear in works from other series.
The lack of specific context in the work provides a neutral, yet intensely charged atmosphere. Like archetypes capable of embodying shifting meanings, the portrayed missile becomes a mold for the human condition, at once satirical, tragic, humorous, and above all, contradictory. As Jeffrey Grove elaborates, "Characterized by an ineffable sense of dislocation, his work is unified by a visual syntax that captures Borremans's subjects in compelling states of intermediacy and indeterminacy. His work appears to explore complicated psychological states, yet these manifestations confuse simple logic. Intentionally deploying inexplicable signifiers colliding in ambiguous spaces of unsettling beauty, Borremans fulfills a wish 'to create an atmosphere outside time, a space where time has been cancelled.'"1
1 Jeffrey Grove, “Not Too Sweet,” in Jeffrey Grove, ed., Michaël Borremans: As sweet as it gets. Exh. cat. (Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2014), p. 11.
