Two adjacent rooms in the “Rendez Vous” exhibition in Museum Voorlinden (@museumvoorlinden) that beautifully work together.
In the first room we see “028” (2007) by Berlinde de Bruyckere and already take a peek into the next room. De Bruyckere is a Belgian artist whose highly symbolical work focuses around the themes of warmth, sheltering, vulnerability and fear. In lots of her pieces De Bruyckere uses antique display cabinets to show wax models of trees, limbs, often using woolen blankets as symbols of protection and covering. In this work the blankets aren’t covering anything however: they rest folded in the bottom compartments, serving as a soft bedding for the roots of the trees above. Or maybe even as the roots themselves.
The bear in the background is “Ours” (2014), a model of a bear by Abraham Poincheval. We see the side of the bear that is intact. On the other side there is an opening that will fit a human being. In fact, it did fit a human being for several days in 2014: the artist himself resided in the artwork supplied with a kettle, ten books and a bin. Eating a diet based on that of bears and practicing a hibernation-style meditation.
