The Figure in Contemporary Art

rosenfeldporcini’s first themed exhibition in 2017 contemplates the possibilities of the figure in the post Picasso era after the great Spanish artist had seemingly exhausted any avenues of looking at the human figure. For the occasion, a group of loans from prominent collections interact with a selection of new works by gallery artists.

If Duchamp threw open the doors of what could be defined as a work of art, the formal frontiers of the human figure were torn down by Picasso. The visual innovation brought about by his deconstruction of human physiognomy into geometric planes still resonates in the practice of many contemporary figurative artists. Over the course of a decade, the prevailing Neo Classical portraiture aesthetic initiated by Picasso in the 20’s, was then rendered obsolete by the same artist’s distortion of the human figure which reached its apotheosis with ‘Guernica’.

Historically the Western tradition until the 17th century associated the portrayal of the human being with a figure of power, whether religious, political or financial. There was no democracy to the process. Even the black Moors who featured in many Venetian paintings in the 16th century would only provide further aesthetic options to the artist, without any ideological implications. Similarly, the attention which began to be paid to the more desperate inhabitants of society such as beggars, young homeless boys and flower sellers during the 17th century also had no political subtext.

It wasn’t until Daumier’s caricatural sculptures in the 19th century that the portrayal of a human being carried connotations beyond the psychological. In fact, the acute critique of the establishment resounding in the French master’s large body of work helped to forge the use of political statement in artistic production. The Figure in Contemporary Art, without in any way claiming to be exhaustive, attempts to explore the various sources of inspiration that are influencing artists today.