Dossier - Benoît Hermans
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Benoît Hermans
1963, Wittem - Maastricht

Benoît Hermans likes to use photography as his starting point. He reworks the photos, scrawling on them and sticking things on them. Then he takes photos of them, adding elements and thus composing, like a contemporary Acrimboldo (a 16th-century painter of bizarre composite portraits), all sorts of strange faces and semi-portraits, such as the portrait of the writer Hella Haasse (1993). In these collages, Hermans appears to be mocking a diversity of historical tableaux and figures. All kinds of intentions and meanings are pushed to the fore, but Hermans’ tone is gentle and utterly lacking in weightiness, thus leaving us plenty to guess at.
Hermans is a visual artist with a strong philosophical streak.  He has published two contemplative works: ‘Het Primaat van de Kunst en de Consequenties daarvan voor Wetenschap en Filosofie’ (1994) and ‘Tussen een Ontologische Esthetica en een Esthetische Ontologie’ (1995).
The museum has twelve works by Benoît Hermans from the period 1990-1996 in its collection. In 1996, the Bonnefantenmuseum organised a solo exhibition of his work entitled ‘Falschnehmungen’.
L'Espace aux Ombres, 2008

Images
Collection Bonnefantenmuseum
L'Espace aux Ombres, 2008
Twist and Shout, 2008
Flesh Back, 2005
Zonder titel, 1996
Zonder titel, 1993
Zonder titel, 1993
Zonder titel, 1992
Edmund Husserl auf der Suche nach den Sachen selbst, 1992
Zonder titel, 1992
Zonder titel, 1991
Zonder titel, 1991
Zonder titel, 1991
Zonder titel, 1990
Zonder titel, 1990
Zonder titel, 1990