Johan Tahon: Fresh is on view at Kunstforum Solothurn, Solothurn
May 4 – June 15, 2024
In his work, Belgian artist Johan Tahon thematises man‘s search for spirituality and transcendence and his imperfection in relation to the universe and the divine.
Restless and filled with longing for the inexpressible, Johan Tahon explores the boundaries of the great unknown. Trusting in his material, technique and skill, he goes in search of the nothing that is at once everything in a manner that is as fearless as it is stubborn. Of a present that is also past and future. And of the silence that speaks volumes. Over the past few decades, Tahon has breathed life into an impressive sequence of mysterious bronze, plaster and ceramic sculptures: injured giants and unapproachable angels, tormented creatures and modest monks, sensual nudes and amorphous hybrids. All of these – whether they fit into the palm of a hand or reach up to a monumental height – float between the earth and the heavens.
The work of Johan Tahon shows the forgotten possibiities of contemporary sculpture. His oeuvre has developed in the wake of Michelangelo, Rodin, Lehmbruck, Giacometti, and Beuys. With Tahon art has again become the expression of an emotional component.
Johan Tahon‘s sculptures are powerful and expressive. Although they are created independently, they are rooted in works of art and myths of the past. His figures, often worked as ceramic sculptures, convey a back and forth between intellect and emotion, threatening calm and meditative stillness, vulnerability and strength, pain and tenderness. They point directly to the essential and aim to express the density and complexity of human existence, stripped bare, raw, and barren. Some sculptures are pierced and punctured, as if they open up access to other worlds that the works seem to reflect.
Johan Tahon consciously integrates influences from European art history and Egyptian, African and Far Eastern sculptures into his work. In addition to expression, the sculptural quality is an important aspect for the artist. The creative process is obvious and comprehensible. The construction and workmanship remain just as visible as the artist‘s hand. In his moulded sculptures, he leaves the casting intact. He mixes his own glaze so that it is thin enough to drip and just thick enough to stick. The glazes cover the surface as if nerves were exposed. Johan Tahon‘s figures are fragmentary, deformed and reduced and can be understood as a reference to the endangerment of man.
In essence, Johan Tahon‘s work is a continuous search for a higher truth and a deep sensitivity to the existential condition of humanity. Because this search or urge comes from his deepest being, he is able to move us to our very core.
Johan Tahon is searching for the primal history of the soul, for the source of our fundamental loneliness. This trauma is the driving force behind Tahon‘s creative activity. Making sculptures has become an absolute physical and psychological necessity for Johan Tahon. There is no way of life outside of sculpture.
Johan Tahon was born in Menen (Belgium) in 1965. He studied sculpture at the Ghent Royal Academy of Fine Arts (BE). Since 1994 Johan Tahon exhibits his work on a regular basis in Belgium as well as abroad. In 1996, he caught the attention of Belgium’s most influential curator and museum director Jan Hoet (e.g. Documenta 9), who made it possible for Tahon to interact with world-level artists in the internationally renowned exhibition De Rode Poort in the Ghent Museum of Contemporary Art (with a.o. Luc Tuymans, Vito Acconci and Sam Taylor-Wood). From then on, Tahon got the full support of Hoet, and Tahon started exhibiting his work at different galleries and in prominent museums across Europe, solo or combined with works of a.o. Ilya Kabakov, Günther Förg, Tony Cragg and Stephan Balkenhol. He took part in major exhibitions like Beaufort (Ostend, BE) and Lustwarande (Tilburg, NL) and showed his sculptures at places like the Ministry of Finance (The Hague, NL), the Gerhard Marcks Haus (Bremen, DE), the Academia Belgica (Rome, IT), the courtyard of the Topkapi Palace (Istanbul, TR), the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington DC, USA) and the Istanbul Biennial (TR).
In Switzerland, his exhibitions Kalklicht at the Galerie Kunstforum Solothurn and Refuge / Silence at the Musée Ariana in Geneva were on show in 2019 and his exhibition The Sculp tor at the Galerie Kunstforum Solothurn in 2021.
Text by Hanspeter Dähler
Contact
info@kunstforum.cc
Kunstforum Solothurn
Schaalgasse 9
CH-4500 Solothurn
Switzerland
Installation photos by Simon von Gunten.
Captions
- K, 2024, Stoneware, Glaze, 94 x 30 x 30 cm
- Portrait I (Saint Malo), 2023, Stoneware, Glaze, 68 x 42 x 36 cm
- Amande Noire, 2022, Bronze, 3/5, 39 x 17 x 17 cm
- Blue White Macha, 2023-2024, Stoneware, Glaze, 46 x 13 x 13 cm
- Fresh, 2023-2024, Stoneware, Glaze, 80 x 30 x 20 cm. Photo by Gert Jan van Rooij.
- Njord I, 2021, Stoneware, Glaze, 6,5 x 6,5 x 9 cm
- Van Gogh Portrait, 2022-2023, Stoneware, Glaze, 32 x 16 x 18 cm
- Van Gogh’s Unconscious, 2022-2023, Stoneware, Glaze, 14 x 17 x 22 cm
