The invisible colour

20.06 – 03.10.2010

A collection display with: Pawel Althamer, Francis Alÿs, Jowan van Barneveld, Michael Krebber, Joëlle Tuerlinckx and Luc Tuymans
Curator: Kristina Dittelova


Sometimes the title of an artwork happens to be more meaningful than it appears at first glance. A title can seem irrational; in an inconsistent setting or just purely descriptive. Nevertheless titles can reveal more about the artists' intention than we would expect. Titles can even cause indignation as it happened with Marcel Duchamp's perhaps most renowned painting: Nude Descending a Staircase, n° 2 (Nu descendant un escalier n° 2) in 1912. This work surprisingly was rejected by the Society of Independent Artists (Salon des Indépendants) which was founded in order to display new and revolutionary developments in painting. The members of the Salon however felt that Duchamp mocked the Cubist movement. What they objected to was the contrast between the traditional descriptive title and the abstract visual image.


Duchamp was deeply interested in both visual and textual language. He understood words as mechanisms which can trigger numerous associations to manipulate meaning and to keep a certain layer of mystery around the artwork. It was Duchamp who suggested that the title of an artwork is an invisible colour.

The exhibition The Invisible Colour offers a different view on specific works in the museum collection by drawing attention to the various strategies artists use to deal with, and take advantage of titles. Some of the artists speak in a direct language (i.e. Francis Alÿs) while others, without the enlightenment of the title, would leave the spectator in a labyrinth of visual possibilities (i.e. Luc Tuymans).

About the curator of the show
Kristina Dittelova (1983, Komarno, Slovakia) has studied at the Faculty of Economics, Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. Currently she is a master student of the course Arts and Heritage at the Maastricht University. 

Download here the press release as pdf.


Beeldmateriaal

lees de voorwaarden voordat u het beeldmateriaal download. Wij stellen het erg op prijs om een bewijsexemplaar van de publicatie te ontvangen!

Flaggs (Against Nature), 2003
Michael Krebber



Flaggs (Against Nature), 2003
Michael Krebber



Blessing, 1996
Luc Tuymans



Belly, 1996
Luc Tuymans



Cuesta Verde, 2006
Jowan van Barneveld



A stretch Museum Scale 1 : 1, een voorstel voor het Bonnefantenmuseum. Tetoonstellingszaal 1, 2001-2003
Joëlle Tuerlinckx



So genannte Wellen und andere Phänomene des Geistes, 2003-2004
Pawel Althamer & Artur Zmijewski