WATCH: Hyperrealist art disturbs, impresses visitors at Lyon exhibition

A host of immobile creatures, disturbing replicas of the human race created by the great artists of the hyperrealism movement, await visitors in a former industrial warehouse in Lyon for an exhibition never before seen in France.

“Ceci n’est pas un corps” (This is not a body) is a travelling exhibit, landing in France after Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium.

“Beyond the technical performance of the wax statues offered by museums such as Grévin or Tussauds, hyperrealism wants to capture the human soul: it is a question of exacerbating reality to reach us”, underlines Benoit Remiche, the “conductor” of the event organised by his company, Tempora.

The title of the exhibition evokes the famous “This is not a pipe” by the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte, his compatriot.

From the Australian Ron Mueck, nicknamed the “Pope of the intimate hyperrealist” for his strikingly precise creations, to the American Duane Hanson, one of the pioneers of the genre, the exhibition presents some thirty international artists.

Their meeting aims to illustrate the ramifications of the movement that appeared in the 1960s in the United States, as a counterpoint to abstract art, in the extension of Andy Warhol’s Pop Art or realist painters like Edward Hopper.Impeccable wick, pensive gaze, Andy Warhol is present with an imposing bust signed by the Japanese Kazu Hiro, a professional makeup artist from Hollywood converted into the sculpture of celebrities.

As soon as you enter the exhibition, the presence of a young dark-haired woman, face hidden, body bent facing a wall, asks: what is she doing? Is she crying? Is she looking at something? Contrary to appearances, “Caroline” is not alive, it is a polyester resin sculpture by the French artist Daniel Firman.

The frightening “Jonathan”, an art dealer reduced to a wheelchair, arms and legs in plaster, was posted at the exit. It is to “question the art market, where everything revolves around money” that Daniel Glazer and Magdalena Kunz, a couple of Swiss artists, gave it life, eyes and voice.

Challenges

Giant newborn still sticky with placenta, silicone swimmers with water-beaded busts, recumbent marble figure posing with her camera and her missile launcher…. the hyperrealist current brings together “very different works, with different stakes and only one common point, the appearance of life”, estimates Peter Land.

This 55-year-old Danish artist is presenting a self-portrait entitled “Back to square one” in Lyon, a homeless man asleep on dirty blankets, his body distended in a long pile of boxes.

“This sculpture is inspired by my own fear of ending up like this,” he explains.

To create his double, Peter Land molded his own body in silicone, cast his form in fiberglass, before painting it and dressing it in his own clothes. The resemblance is such that “the first time I saw him, I felt like I was dead, it’s scary,” he says.

His message? “Reminding people how precarious life can be”, the presence of a homeless person showing that “museums are places that underpin the inequalities of society”. 

A speech carried before him by Duane Hanson.

To respond to an order from the VG Bild-Kunst museum in Bonn, this American artist had, in 1993, chosen a concierge in a work coat as his model. “The museum curator was troubled every day to see this split concierge, both real and statuesque, both a work of art and an employee,” laughs Benoit Remiche.

This enthusiast also likes to recall the excitement aroused in the 1970s by the Belgian sculptor Jacques Verduyn: “Pat & Verle”, two young bathers in their deckchairs had been exhibited in front of a gallery and “it revolted passers-by to see half-naked humans in a shop window”.

Caroline, Jonathan, Pat & Verle will stay in Lyon until June 6. Next step, Paris, at the Maillol museum, from September 7, 2022.