Paul Benney Included in Blockbuster Scandinavian Public Exhibition

Paul Benney’s monumental oil painting titled ‘Entombment (after Rembrandt)’ will be exhibited in the ‘Iconic Works’ exhibition, touring from the National Gallery of Stockholm, Sweden to Ateneum, the National Gallery of Helsinki, Finland later in the year.

The Blockbuster show, also includes works by contemporary artists Jeff Koons, Jenny Saville, Grayson Perry, Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, Alexander Mihaylovich, Marc Quinn, Gavin Turk, Tracy Emin, Kiki Smith, Mat Colishaw, Joseph Kosuth, Yinka Shonibare, Glenn Brown, Marina Abramović, John Currin, Jake & Dinos Chapman and Cornelia Parker introducing modern-day  interpretations of iconic works from Rembrandt, Hieronymus Bosch, Caravaggio, Francisco Goya, Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Nicolas Poussin and Titian, to mention a few examples.

The exhibition explores what constitutes the visual DNA of Western art, examining how have international contemporary artists have been inspired by the classics of European art, and why is it these works, in particular, that have become known around the world. Iconic Works presents art that draws inspiration from iconic masterpieces, created by some of today’s leading contemporary artists.

Paul Benney’s painting explores Benney’s ongoing interest in religious painting of the renaissance and later up alongside contemporary symbology. Arguably, the dominant symbology of the Middle Ages and 16th, 17th and 18th century, was firmly within the Church’s iconography. The stories told to us at that time through religious imagery were aiming to guide us to a universally desired, morally respectable life. In the contemporary absence of convincing moral and ethical guidance from our religious bodies we have allowed government bodies to fill the vacuum with a tsunami of road, domestic and health and safety signage and text that purports to guide us safely to our desired destinations. The current proliferation of signage would not, Benney suggests, be understood by a 17th Century man as the iconography of socially benign guidance but evidence of a universal adherence to a religious cult centred on the car, transport, and health and safety in the urban environment that has been foisted upon us by a ruling class that sees itself as responsible for our well being, in much the same way that the clergy felt responsible for our well being in the days of the church’s hegemony. The painting aims to show the underlying connections and intentions between the very different iconography of different ages with the hope of opening up some dialogue about how we allow ourselves to be ‘guided’ in the modern age. 

The exhibition will first be on show at Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, February – May 2020, and continue straight to Ateneum, Helsinki for June – September 2020. The exhibition is curated by Dr. Susanna Pettersson, art historian and director general, Nationalmuseum, Sweden, and James Putnam, museum historian and independent author and curator, with Sointu Fritze, chief curator.


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