Opening: Saturday 9 September 2017

Exhibition continues until 11 October 2017

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is presenting DEJEUNER SUR L'HERBE, a group exhibition curated around notions of lingering. The title is less a direct reference to Edouard Manet's groundbreaking painting than a point of departure to explore the complex span of interpretations related to it. Just like Manet refused to conform to convention and initiated a new freedom from traditional subjects and modes of representation, the works presented in the exhibition deliberately take the landscape genre as a way to capture a contemporary state of being.

The artists in DEJEUNER SUR L'HERBE question the appropriation and circulation of this archetype in visual culture. They often adopt a critical approach towards our overstimulated ways of living, either by inviting us to think about recreation and social gathering or by reconsidering the tension between nature and culture. In some cases, the human figure is a mere trace; in others the body is a central element, connected to gender politics. All the works however are informed by personal or social narratives and reassert the role of subjectivity in the contemporary flow of imagery.

The exhibition will feature works by Jules de Balincourt, Stephan Balkenhol, Ali Banisadr, Georg Baselitz, Miquel Barceló, Cecily Brown, Jean-Marc Bustamante, Matali Crasset, Elger Esser, Antony Gormley, Adrian Ghenie, Secundino Hernandez, Alex Katz, Anselm Kiefer, Richard Long, Farhad Moshiri, Patrick Neu, Imran Qureshi, Daniel Richter, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Sturtevant, Wolfgang Tillmanns and Erwin Wurm. New works by Yan Pei-Ming, David Salle and Miquel Barceló have been especially commissioned for the exhibition.