Agnès Thurnauer (born 1962) is a French-Swiss contemporary artist. Primarily a painter, she also works with a number of other media and techniques.

Biography

Agnès Thurnauer was born in 1962, in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, where she continues to live and work. She attended the

École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs The École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ÉnsAD, also known as Arts Decos', École des Arts Décoratifs) is a public grande école of art and design of PSL Research University. The school is located in the Rue d'Ulm in Paris. Profil ...

, where she studied cinema and video art.

Notable work

Big-Big et Bang-Bang (1995—1996)

''Big-Big et Bang-Bang'' are a series of abstract acrylic paintings in subtle colour tones on canvas created by Thurnauer between 1995 and 1996. The works were created with the canvases stapled to the wall. The paintings were only mounted on frames when complete, for the purposes of display and preservation. Agnès Thurnauer Portraits grandeur nature

Agnès Thurnauer Portraits grandeur nature

Portraits grandeur nature (2007—2009)

In 2007, Thurnauer first exhibited her work ''Portraits grandeur nature'', a series of oversized buttons (each 120 cm in diameter) in resin and epoxy paint displaying the names of well-known artists, mostly male, transformed into names evoking the opposite gender. For example,

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

becomes Marcelle Duchamp and

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

becomes Annie Warhol. An exception is the button reading Louis Bourgeois, a masculinized version of the name of the artist

Louise Bourgeois Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...

. This work, which questions both the literal and figurative representation of women in art, propelled her to previously unattained notoriety as an artist. Agnès Thurnauer Predelles

Prédelles (2007—2011)

Beginning in 2007, Thurnauer produced a series of works, called ''Prédelle'' (the French term for predella). The ''Grande Prédelle ''incarnations, produced from 2008-2011, are diptychs, each depicting a large feathered wing along a deformation of the iconic title of the magazine ''Elle''. The title and subject convey a multiple play on words, simultaneously acting as a

homonym In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones (equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definition, ...

for "''près d'elle''" and "''aile''", respectively meaning "close to her" and "wing" in French. Cyclicly, each ''Grande Prédelle'' painting has its own

palette Palette may refer to: * Cosmetic palette, an archaeological form * Palette, another name for a color scheme * Palette (painting), a wooden board used for mixing colors for a painting ** Palette knife, an implement for painting * Palette (company), ...

glued to it as a finishing touch. Agnès Thurnauer Olympia 2

Olympia #2 (2012)

In 2013, Thurnauer was invited by Yale University to participate in an exhibition celebrating the 150th anniversary of two masterpieces by

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Born ...

(''

Olympia The name Olympia may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Olympia'' (1938 film), by Leni Riefenstahl, documenting the Berlin-hosted Olympic Games * ''Olympia'' (1998 film), about a Mexican soap opera star who pursues a career as an athlet ...

'' and '' Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe'', 1863). Thurnauer contributed the painting '' Olympia#2'', which features a rendition of Manet's Olympia with textual terms of endearment superimposed upon the image. Thurnauer was also a speaker at the associated conference.

You (2012—2013)

During a period of two months in 2015, Jesus College at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

replaced three portraits of male alumni in the formal dining hall with a crayon drawing triptych by Thurnauer, called ''You''. These large portraits of women are extractions from paintings by Manet: ''

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère ''A Bar at the Folies-Bergère'' (french: Un bar aux Folies Bergère) is a painting by Édouard Manet, considered to be his last major work. It was painted in 1882 and exhibited at the Paris Salon of that year. It depicts a scene in the Folies B ...

'', ''

The Railway ''The Railway'', widely known as ''Gare Saint-Lazare'', is an 1873 painting by Édouard Manet. It is the last painting by Manet of his favourite model, the fellow painter Victorine Meurent, who was also the model for his earlier works ''Olympia'' ...

''(of painter Victorine Louise Meurent)'','' and another portrait of Meurent. Central to Thurnauer's choice of Manet's work as a starting point is the notion that his female subjects were themselves painters, as opposed to models. Inevitably, the subjects' regards captured in the paintings are therefore those of Manet's professional peers looking upon him as he worked. This marked the first time that Thurnauer's work was shown in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

Matrice/sol (2012)

The work ''Matrice/sol'' consists of moulds of letters of the alphabet made from resin. Through the characters created from the negative space of the moulds, the work is intended to demonstrate that art is a question of interpretation and language, elements that change constantly.

Painting as a medium

Thurnauer continues to challenge the relevance of the medium of painting today, which remains her staple despite ventures into other methods. For Thurnauer, a painting is not simply a passive surface displaying an image. Rather, it is a means to an active experience for the viewer. She has stated that she is interested in working with

paint Paint is any pigmented liquid, liquefiable, or solid mastic composition that, after application to a substrate in a thin layer, converts to a solid film. It is most commonly used to protect, color, or provide texture. Paint can be made in many ...

, an ordinary, inanimate object, as a means of confronting one's intemporality.

Relationship with language

Thurnauer has long been fascinated with language, as evidenced by the recurring theme of wordplay, text and symbols in her work. She has been considered as a distant successor to the

Art & Language Art & Language is a conceptual artists' collaboration that has undergone many changes since it was created in the late 1960s. The group was founded by artists who shared a common desire to combine intellectual ideas and concerns with the creati ...

movement. Thurnauer considers the medium of painting to be a “place of speech". Her interpretation of this idea transcends the physical appearance of text in paintings, implying the materialization of thought itself. In her sculpture, ''Matrice/Sol'', she employs letters moulded from resin, not merely as literal tools, but as spatial delimiters whose interstices form an expanse within which one can circulate.

Solo exhibitions (selected)

* 2001 ''Pour en venir au monde'', Le Crédac, Ivry-sur-Seine, France * 2003 ''Les circonstances ne sont pas atténuantes'', Palais de Tokyo, Paris * 2003 ''Maintenant avant après'', Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot, Paris * 2004 ''Don't pretend you've never heard of it'', Springhornhof, Neuekirchen, Germany * 2005 ''I will survive'', Wim Reiff Gallery, Maastricht, Netherlands * 2006'' Around a round'', Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot, Paris * 2007 ''Bien faite, mal faite, pas faite'', S.M.A.K., Ghent, Belgium * 2008 ''Portraits grandeur nature'', Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris * 2009 ''Thurnauer à Angers'', Musée des beaux-arts d'Angers, Angers, France * 2010 ''May I?, Villa Emerige, Paris * 2011 ''Manifestement'', Espace d'Art Contemporain André Malraux, Colmar, France * 2011 ''Sujet, verbe et compléments'', Immanence, Paris * 2014 ''Figure libre'', Le Radar, Centre d'art Contemporain, Bayeux, France * 2014 ''Now When Then - de Tintoret à Tuymans'', Musée des beaux-arts de Nantes, Nantes * 2014 ''Sleepwalking'', Galerie de Roussan, Paris * 2015 ''You'', Jesus College, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK * 2016 ''A History of Painting'', Château de Montsoreau-Museum of contemporary art,

Montsoreau Montsoreau () is a commune of the Loire Valley in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast and from Paris. The village is listed among '' The Most Beautiful Villages of France'' (french: Les Plus ...

, France

Group exhibitions (selected)

* 2004

FIAC The Paris International Contemporary Art Fair (Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain or FIAC) is a contemporary art event that occurs in Paris. It was usually held in October in the Grand Palais. In 2022, Art Basel surprisingly evinced FIA ...

, Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot, Paris * 2005 ''Biennale de Lyon'', Lyon * 2006 ''Notre histoire'', Palais de Tokyo, Paris * 2009 '' elles@centrepompidou'', Centre Pompidou, Paris * 2013 '' Drawing Now'', Carrousel du Louvre, Paris * 2013 ''Lunch with Olympia'', Edgewood Gallery, Yale School of Art, USA * 2013 ''Jardin de langage'', Fondation Poppy et Pierre Salinger, Thor * 2013 ''Elles: Mulheres artistas na coleção do Centro Pompidou'', CCBB, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil * 2014 ''"G I R L"'', Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris * 2014 ''Drawing Now'', Carreaux du temple, Paris * 2014 ''A bitter sweet legacy'', Galierie de Roussan, Paris * 2014 ''Cet obscur objet du désir- Autour de l'Origine du monde'', Musée Gustave Courbet, Ornans, France

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thurnauer, Agnes Living people 1962 births École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs alumni French women painters Feminist artists French contemporary artists 21st-century French women artists 20th-century French women