Sylke von Gaza

Exhibition Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf 2016/17

“Behind the Curtain. Concealment and Revelation since the Renaissance. From Titian to Cristo”

In 2016/17 Sylke von Gaza was invited to participate with two large scale Veil Painting works in the exhibition Behind the Curtain. Concealment and Revelation since the Renaissance. From Titian to Cristo at Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf. The exhibition was curated by General Director Beat Wismer and Claudia Blümle, Professor at the Institute of Art and Visual Studies of Humboldt Universität in Berlin.

Set against the background of the legend of the origin of mimetic painting – the tale of the contest between the ancient painters Zeuxis and Parrhasios – this thematic exhibition takes a look at the motifs of veil and curtain, thus illuminating fundamental issues of painting and fine art in general. The exhibition demonstrates the interplay between showing and concealing, revealing and veiling with a range of exclusive loans of art. The works range from Renaissance and Baroque paintings to modern and contemporary art. Alongside the key work of the exhibition, Titian’s “Portrait of Cardinal Filippo Archinto” from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum Kunstpalast presents a variety of loans from international museums and private collections, including works by Giovanni Bellini, François Boucher, Max Beckmann, Arnold Böcklin, Robert Delaunay and Gerhard Richter. Von Gaza's two large scale Veil Painting works represented a contemporary non-figurative approach to the theme of concealment and revelation, working with the metaphor of the veil in an abstract, metaphorical way.

Accompanying the exhibition, a richly illustrated catalogue was published by Hirmer. Contributions by eminent art historians such as Horst Bredekamp, Georges Didi-Huberman, Wolfgang Kemp, Roland Krischel, Klaus Krüger, Oskar Bätschmann, Patrik Reuterswärd, Barbara Schellewald, Beate Söntgen, Victor I. Stoichita & Gerhard Wolf elaborate on the topic of the highly frequented exhibition.

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