Graceland 1

2007

Oil on canvas

160 x 160 cm

An armchair, a grand piano and a curtain give rhythm to Wilhelm Sasnal’s Graceland 4. Lying on a pale yellow-greenish ground, these objects seem to float and distort the perspective. The armchair is blurred, as if its interior had been wiped with a sponge. The result is an atmosphere tinged with the unreal, like a dream or a distant memory.

Sasnal’s works are based on photographs taken from films, the press or the Internet. By treating them pictorially, he changes their meaning and puts them into a floating time. Painting thus acts as a distorting mirror of memory and subjectivity. This painting is from the Graceland series, which captures the uncertainty inherent to all perception in visual and poetic aesthetics.

Graceland 4 was shown for the first time by the Pinault Collection during the 2009 "Mapping the Studio" show at the Palazzo Grassi.
Exhibitions