Breukere, Berlinde

Berlande de Breuikere creates sculpture using materials such as wax , wood , wool , skin and hair . The figures resemble distorted human and animal forms, often do not have faces, are irregular in shape and fragmented. Sculptures are usually placed on tall chairs or hung from the ceiling and walls. At first, their forms seem familiar, although they are difficult to interpret. The works of Berlinde de Breuikere offer viewers a disturbing vision of fragility and suffering.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, Berlinde de Breuer has been using wool bedspreads in his sculptures and installations. For de Breuikere, they symbolize not only warmth and shelter, but also vulnerability and fear. Fear that makes people crawl under the covers and vulnerability in situations related to cold, disease, disaster and war. Images that the media show every day: reports from hotbeds of violence and natural disasters.

One of the first sculptures with blankets consisted of a simple pile of folded blankets on a wooden chair (Untitled, 1991). The order and balance of the stack were literally undermined by the slope of the base. Dekenhuis (House of Blankets), 1993, was a metal cage over which blankets were draped, leaving one corner of the cage uncovered. “Onschuld kan een hel zijn (Innocence can be hell)” is the name of the installation at Park Middelheim in 1995. The open containers were filled with piles of blankets, cheerful in color, they looked creepy, symbolizing help that did not reach the goal. Powerlessness was emphasized by the figures of women whose arms and legs drooped helplessly and their bodies were hidden under the covers. The security threat was also expressed in the installation with three beds (“Untitled”, 1996), which were loaded with piles of colored blankets: deep, round holes were made in layers of fabric in different places.

• Hauser & Wirth Gallery
• De Pont Foundation for Contemporary Art
• 1 SMAK (Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst), Ghent
• Saatchi gallery
• Artfacts