Lot 409 | "Elephant behind clown through keyhole"

TAL R (TAL ROSENZWEIG)
1967 Tel Aviv/Israel

Title: "Elephant behind clown through keyhole".
Date: 2009.
Technique: Rabbit glue, pigment and wax crayons on canvas.
Measurement: 250 x 250cm.
Notation: Signed and dated verso on stretcher: Tal R 2010. Here additionally titled. As well inscribed: TAL/M 388/00.


Provenance:
- Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin (stamp and label)

Exhibitions:
- ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, 2013/2014
- Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk 2017

Literature:
- Nipper, Marie (ed.) Tal R - The virgin, Cologne 2013, ill. p. 127
- Jorgensen, Laerke Rysdal/Kold, Anders (eds.): Academy of Tal R, London/Humlebaek/Cologne 2017, p. 217, ill. p. 106

Tal Rosenberg, who works as an artist primarily under the pseudonym Tal R, was born in Israel in 1967. Only a short time later his family moved to Denmark. In Denmark, he attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, among others. After his graduation and alternating teaching activities in Helsinki and Hamburg, among others. Tal R also taught a masters class at the Düsseldorf Art Academy.

In his work "Elephant behind clown through keyhole", Tal R creates a work full of references and cross-references that only gradually become apparent to the viewer. These references and cross-references are interlinked within the picture and reveal how Tal R creates a complexly interwoven pictorial structure despite minimalist compositions.

The perspective through the keyhole unmasks the viewer's voyeuristic intentions, but Tal R is not content with this. The coloured strip at the lower edge of the picture, typical of the artist, represents a stage. The viewer is thus placed in the spotlight without being asked. In contrast to this, the viewer does not see a scene that would explain the voyeur's urge to observe from the shadows. On the contrary, clown and elephant are both behind the keyhole, but pose as if they were in a performance, doomed to be seen only by the voyeur behind a closed door, while the voyeur is suddently unintentionally in focus. Thus, the viewer gets two weights attached by the artist: On the one hand, he finds himself in the unintentional role of the voyeur, and in addition, in this position he displaces the elephant and clown from their original stage. Tal R challenges the viewer of his work, twisting familiar roles and triggering the process of self-reflection in the viewer through his minimalist, yet complex composition.