RISK THE REAL
Academic research - Exhibition - Publication
RISK THE REAL is the culmination of research in humanities - specifically within the field of modern and contemporary art history - focusing on the construction of the figure in 20th-century art. This project took the form of both a publication and an exhibition, which I had the honor of curating for the Berardo Museum in Lisbon, Portugal, at the invitation of its director, Jean-François Chougnet, allowing me to work in intimate proximity to works by the following artists :
Vito Acconci, Helena Almeida, Carl Andre, Giovanni Anselmo, Art & Language, Michael Ashkin, Francis Bacon, Moises Barrios, Georg Baselitz, Larry Bell, Peter Blake, Alighiero Boetti, Daniel Buren, Pedro Cabrita Reis, César, Rui Chafes, Michael Craig-Martin, Grenville Davey, Caetano Dias, Jim Dine, Marcel Duchampn, Max Ernst, Dan Flavin, Lucio Fontana, Robert Gober, Nan Goldin, Anthony Gormley, Thomas Grünfeld, Richard Hamilton, Jenny Holzer, Rebecca Horn, Peter Hutchinson, Donald Judd, Anish Kapoor, Yves Klein, Gustav Klucis, Jeff Koons, Jannis Kounellis, Abigail Lane, Roy Lichtenstein, El Lissitzky, José Loureiro, Armando Mariño, Allan McCollum, John McCracken, Albuquerque Mendes, Mario Merz, Ana Mendieta, László Moholy-Nagy, Sarah Morris, Juan Muñoz, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Miguel Palma, Gina Pane, Giulio Paolini, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Jackson Pollock, Richard Prince, Mel Ramos, Man Ray, Rigo, Bridget Riley, James Rosenquist, Susan Rothenberg, Thomas Ruff, Lucas Samaras, Julian Schnabel, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman, Ernesto de Souza, Jindrich Stryrsky, Frank Stella, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Jacques Villeglé, Wolf Vostell, Andy Warhol.
RISK THE REAL attempts to rethink the status of the figure beyond mimesis in modern and contemporary art, that is by questioning its purely illusionistic and figurative nature or, conversely, its detachment from reality toward an idealization of the image spanning from Renaissance humanism to Twentieth-century modernist abstraction. The aim is to glimpse how, in twentieth-century art, the figure relates not merely to the figurative realm or its complementary opposite—the abstract figure—but is instead constructed through detours, contours, de/trans/formations, withdrawals, simulacra, invisibilities, and actions; in doing so, it touches upon the Lacanian concept of the "troumatic Real", a kind of gaping void where the image might manifest itself on this side of, or beyond, strict formalization and "clairvoyance."
The show was organized into three sections, each exploring a different relationship between the figure and reality:
Real spaces: the figure in retreat, opening with minimalist and post-minimalist works by artists like Sol LeWitt, Richard Serra, and Dan Flavin, where the figure is withdrawn but fully perceptible; The real beyond limits: the figure in acts, where the figure re-emerges through bodily action and transgression; The traumatic real: the figure in all its states, closing with works of excess and saturation, reflecting the intensity of contemporary experience.The layout was deliberately labyrinthine, encouraging cross-contamination between rooms and works rather than a strictly linear reading.
The book explores the concepts of "figure" and "real" in art history over the last century and includes color reproductions from the Berardo Collection. Larys Frogier traces a critical path through a century of art history, questioning the shifting meanings of "figure" and "real" — two concepts that have been redefined, contested, and reinvented repeatedly from the early 1900s onward.
