Nate Lowman / Auguste Rodin

The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes presents an intervention by Nate Lowman, contemporary artist from the United States, in dialog with the sculptures by French maestro Auguste Rodin that pertain to the institutional collection.

Rodin’s work has been crucial in shaping Lowman’s plastic universe, and a source of inspiration for a portion of his production. In the works shown here, we discover citations and vestiges of the sculptor’s creations, as in the case of the painting Lowman created based on one of Rodin’s most famous and controversial pieces, the Monument à Balzac [Monument to Balzac], or, in the series motivated by the greatly admired studies elaborated by the French maestro on dance and the movements of Cambodian performers.

A universe in continual expansion, art enables distant times and places to be connected. This is precisely why works allow for comparisons that are critical, daring and full of suggestion. The century that separates Rodin’s production from Lowman’s speaks by way of the questions that the past poses to the present, and the light that the present sheds on aspects of the past. Subjected to such a challenge, today’s gaze opens perspectives in which new subtleties propose creative and unexpected approaches to the works.

In actions of this type, the Museum aims to activate renewed readings of its collection. On the basis of links forged with contemporary production, the institution’s centenary patrimony can be inscribed within the coordinates of the art of our own time, revitalizing the historical narration that accompanies each work’s particular path. 

Andrés Duprat
Director
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes