Lot 63: ROBERT SUERMONDT

ROBERT SUERMONDT SWISS B. 1961 LA VIE SAUVAGE 2008 oil on canvas and printed cardboard on aluminium 51 x 84 cm / 20.08 x 33.07"

Some recent solo exhibitions
Galerie Briobox, Paris 2009, 'La Redistribution des pièces'
Fabian & Claude Walter Galerie, Zurich 2009, 'Contrebande'
Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam 2006, 'After Morel'

Selected publications
Pierre Sterckx, Redistribution des pièces, Brussels: La Lettre volée 2009
Prix Meret Oppenheim 2006: Interviews, Bern: Bundesamt für Kultur 2008
Jean-Marc Huitorel, Robert Suermondt, Brussels: La lettre volée 2002

Selected public and corporate collections
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NL • Centraal Museum, Utrecht, NL • De Nederlandsche Bank, NL

donated by the artist
courtesy: Fabian & Claude Walter Gallery, Zurich

Robert Suermondt selects and represents unusual picture fragments rather than offering a general view of an event or object. Visually highlighted frames and meaningful stills from contemporary urban life. Because of the absence of faces in his picture, Suermondt's visual language places strong emphasis on human body language. Gestures are emphasized: hands touching, the arm of a journalist expectantly stretching a microphone towards an unidentifiable target, fists rearing up in protest. Movement, atmosphere and body language form an alphabet that remains understandable across culture, time and language borders. Suermondt's primary image source is the daily press, mostly small black and white press clippings, which he transfers to canvases of frequently considerable dimensions. The artist's perception of found images is distorted by a notion of their limits and questioning of their context. When a picture seems complete and selfsufficient, Suermondt is tempted to add an element of difference. He encourages a detached and unbiased approach to images: 'In my work, I am replaying familiar modes of representing images, rather than changing them and conceiving totally new layouts.'

Robert Suermondt was resident artist at the Rijksakademie in 1990-1992.
He won the Koninklijke Subsidie voor Vrije Schilderkunst (NL) and the Uriôt Prize (NL) in 1991 and the Meret Oppenheim Prize (CH) in 2006.

www.robertsuermondt.com