Last week I wandered into the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, one of Madrid's "big three" art galleries on the Paseo del Arte, for its exhibition of hiperrealismo (photorealism), which is touring several European cities.
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| Don Eddy, Untitled (4 VWs), 1971 |
With its roots in the US in the late 1960s, photorealists use cameras and projection to create photo-perfect paintings of modern life.
Late morning on a Saturday, the exhibition was absolutely packed. It's grouped around themes, from a room of shiny motorcycles and car bonnets, gleaming perfectly as if they were real, to a room of vast photographic cityscapes.
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| Ben Johnson, Looking back to Richmond House, 2011 |
In front of each canvas there were audible gasps of disbelief that these were really paintings and not photographs.
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| Rod Penner, House With Snow, 1998 |
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| Audrey Flack, Queen, 1976 |
With the movement spanning nearly fifty years, but the paintings grouped by subject rather than time period, the exhibition also made it clear how photography has developed over time, as well as painting techniques. The high resolution and depth of field of digital photography allows the artists to project an almost unnatural sharpness onto their canvasses. Some of the cityscapes and modern still lifes on show were so perfect that they seemed artificial, an exaggerated version of reality.
With the movement spanning nearly fifty years, but the paintings grouped by subject rather than time period, the exhibition also made it clear how photography has developed over time, as well as painting techniques. The high resolution and depth of field of digital photography allows the artists to project an almost unnatural sharpness onto their canvasses. Some of the cityscapes and modern still lifes on show were so perfect that they seemed artificial, an exaggerated version of reality.
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| Robert Bernardi, Meeting, 2012 |
My stand out favourites were Yigal Ozeri's stunning portraits of young women, based on soft-focus photographs painstakingly set up with a film crew. They were so lifelike, so photo-perfect, that jaws were dropping all around the room.
The exhibition is in Madrid until June 2013, after which it will be at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery from November 2013 to March 2014. UK readers, you won't regret it.
http://www.museothyssen.org/microsites/exposiciones/2013/hiperrealismo/index_en.html
Until 9 June 2013
