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22.08 -
01.11.2020
Ruimtemakers: Buiten-expositie
Breda
The Netherlands
Solo exhibition "Voyage Pittoresque" curated by Stedelijk Museum Breda/Marjolijn van de Ven, a collaboration with the Municipality of Breda.

Lush vegetation in a jungle, butterflies in a field of colorful blooming flowers. The works of Ruud van Empel (Breda, 1958) are wonderful and alienating at the same time. Because no matter how normal it may seem, Van Empel brings things together that never come together in reality.

Van Empel uses countless details of people, plants, animals or objects photographed by himself to cut and paste digitally. His “collages” are ingenious and realistic, but the images do not exist in real life. In the context of Ruimtemakers, an initiative of the Municipality of Breda to liven up the city this summer, Stedelijk Museum Breda invited Ruud van Empel to present work in the outdoor space. Van Empel made a choice from his ‘landscapes’ and shows in the museum and a diptych from this series at three outdoor locations in the city.

Locations:

Municipal Museum Breda
End of Speelhuislaan (in front of Breda Station)
Corner Bouwerijstraat / J.F. Kennedylaan
Liniepark (corner of Lachappellestraat / Archimedesstraat)

The title, Voyage Pittoresque, refers to the journeys that artists made in previous centuries through Europe, to conclude their education or to gain inspiration. Once at home, they made imaginative compositions of what they had seen along the way. Just like Van Empel, they created artificial images that invite us to look at the world around us with different eyes.

Would you like to see more of Ruud van Empel? We will have to wait a while, but at the end of 2022, Stedelijk Museum Breda is organizing a large retrospective exhibition by Ruud van Empel.

Concept: Stedelijk Museum Breda and Ruud van Empel
Production: Patricia Gevers
Execution outdoor locations: Cubord
Translation: John Edwards
Thanks to: Municipality of Breda, Ruud van Empel