KURT KAUPER – WOMEN
2018-01-15In his new Woman series, Kauper takes on one of the greatest artistic traditions, the painting of the female nude. For years, Kauper wasn’t interested in painting nude women. He recently questioned his self-imposed prohibition, however, and wondered if it was possible to sidestep the paradigmatic categories through which the female nude had been conventionally understood. The titles of the works, Woman 2, 3, 4, and 5, are inspired by de Kooning’s celebrated Woman paintings of the early 1950s. Kauper’s paintings share de Kooning’s tension between figuration and abstraction, but their approach to the female figure is otherwise almost completely divergent. Kauper’s figures are nude, but not erotic. They project strength, not vulnerability. The effect evokes the nudity in classical statues. They have the solidity and serenity of kouros sculptures, but they pose with both legs together, rather than with one leg forward, giving the body more tensile strength. They are like modern Olympic sprinters or hurdlers, but project a grandeur that evokes Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia, rather than contemporary track stars on ESPN.
Opposite – Woman #2, 2017 (detail)
Exhibition runs from January 20th – February 24th, 2018
Almine Rech Gallery
39 East 78th Street
New York
NY 10075
