Berlinde De Bruyckere

Berlinde De Bruyckere (born 1964) is a Belgian contemporary artist who works in sculpture and installation. Her sculptures use body-like forms . Her work is influenced by religious imagery, mythology, and the Flemish Renaissance. Themes in her artwork display human experience, existence, and raw emotion.

Early life and education Berlinde De Bruyckere was born in Ghent, Belgium, in 1964. Her dad worked as a butcher, which desensitized her to seeing corpses. De Bruyckere's studio in Ghent was once a Catholic school, and what used to be the headmaster's home is where her family lives.

In her youth, De Bruyckere was sent to Catholic boarding school which would later influence her artwork. She graduated from the LUCA School of Arts in Ghent in 1986, and did her residency at the In Flanders Field Museum. As De Bruyckere works on her piece, she pays attention to the details, such as the surfaces of her work, to express the meaning of her art. Additionally, she tends to use props that connect with her story's artwork. is part of De Bruyckere A Simple Prophecy exhibition. The sculpture is made out of bronze, lead, and chrome steel. In her previous works, the body figures either do not have a head or their head is covered. is made from horse skin, wood, iron, and polyurethane foam. It is a mutilated horse that has no facial futures, and its upper body and front legs are crouching down and touching the surface of the table that it is on top of. Horses have been a subject that Bruyckere has used repeatedly. It was first introduced in her exhibition In Flanders Fields. When Bruyckere was doing her residency at the In Flanders Field Museum, she found photos of war horses that were dead on the battlefield, which inspired her to use horses as her subject. Bruyckere uses animals to share physical vulnerability with animals, is a sculpture of a young horse laying on its side on the marble table and covered with a blanket. The material that was used for it was horse skin, marble, textile, iron, and epoxy. 2024: Berlinde De Bruyckere: No Life Lost, Artipelag, Stockholm, Sweden. 2023: Berlinde De Bruyckere: Crossing a bridge on fire, MAC/CCB Museum of Contemporary Art, Lisbon, Portugal 2023: Berlinde De Bruyckere: City of Refugee II, Diözesan museum Freising, Freising, Germany 2023: Berlinde De Bruyckere: City of Refugee I, Commanderie de Peyrassol, Flassans sur Issole, France. 2022: Berlinde De Bruyckere: Plunder/ Ekphrasis, Montpellier, MO.CO. Montpellier Contemporain, France. 2022: Berlinde De Bruyckere: PEL/ Becoming the figure, Arp Museum, Remagen, Germany. 2021: Berlinde De Bruyckere: Engelenkeel, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, The Netherlands 2020: Berlinde De Bruyckere, Middelheimmuseum, Antwerp, Belgium. 2019: Aletheia, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. 2019: Berlinde De Bruyckere, San Sebastian, Rubenshuis, Antwerp, Belgium. 2019: A single bed, a single room, Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Italy. 2019: It almost seemed a lily, Hof Van Busleyden, Mechelen, Belgium. 2017: Berlinde de Bruyckere: Embalmed, Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark 2013: Berlinde De Bruyckere: In the Flesh, Kunsthaus Graz, Graz, Austria 2011: Berlinde De Bruyckere, DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, Canada 2004: Berlinde De Bruyckere, Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland 2000: In Flanders Fields, In Flanders Fields Museum, Ieper, Belgium 1997: De Slaapzaal, Kunstvereniging Diepenheim, Diepenheim, The Netherlands. 1994: Washington Velvets (Two from Flanders), The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA. 1993: Huis, Galerie Joost Declercq, Ghent, Belgium. 1991: Berlinde De Bruyckere, Gallerie van Academie, Kasteel Blauwendael, Waasmunster, Belgium. 1990: Reflecting on Confinement and death, Museo Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium. 1990: Berlinde De Bruyckere, Galleria S. & H. de Buck, Gent, Belgium. 1988: Berlinde De Bruyckere, Galleria Fred Lanzenberg, Brussel, Belgium.

Group 2023: The Embodied Spirit, White Cube, Seoul, Korea. 2022: Strange: Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain 2020: Still Still Life, Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere, Finland 2017: Beyond The Pleasure Principle: Affective Operations in Art, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland 2014: Barockt, Kulturhuset, Stockholm, Sweden 2011: Shape of Things to Come, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK 2005: Baroque and Neobaroque: The Hell of the Beautiful, Artium, Salamanca, Spain 2000: Selection Summer 2000, The Drawing Center, New York NY 1995: La condition humaine, een confrontatie, Witte Zaal, Ghent, Belgium 1990: Ateliers d'été / Sommeratelier, Deutsche Messe AG, Hanover, Germany

Collections De Bruyckere's artwork can be found in numerous public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Collezione Gori Fattoria di Cella, Pistoia: and La Fondation Antoine de Galbert, Paris.

Honor and awards

2015, Honorary doctorate from Ghent University 1986, Recipient of the Young Belgian Art Prize

Publications Bruyckere has been featured in several catalogue raisonnés including: Berlinde de Bruyckere (2014) , Cripplewood/ Kreupelhout (2013), We are All Flesh (2013), Berlinde de Bruyckere Romeu My Deer (2012), Berlinde De Bruyckere Pel/ Becoming the figure (2022), Berlinde De Bruckere The Embalmer (2015), and Berlinde De Bruyckere: Angel’s Throat (2021).