Strauss & co - 2015 Mid-year Review

Berlinde de Bruyckere [ BELGIAN ] Schmerzensmann III Sold R3 410 400, 16 March 2015 Though, as indicated throughout, the special focus of Strauss & Co’s auctions falls on South African art, it is no doubt a matter for some satisfaction that the consultancy has registered signal success also in dealing in international artworks, in recent sales recording high-end results for Van Dongen’s portrait of Dolly as well as for Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere’s altogether more challenging Schmerzensmann lll . Schmerzensmann – or “man of sorrows” as the title reads in English – presents a pale human torso complete with hanging legs and lifeless feet – though lacking head and arms – hung out on a weathered nineteenth-century iron column like some perverse trophy of conquest. Skin stretched over bony skeleton, deep incisions like lines of force etched deep into flesh, De Bruyckere’s epoxy and wax sculpture is an image of sheer horror – the kind of tableau a serial killer might devise – a haunting record of flagellation, abuse and torture. Based on a painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder, the work is difficult and expressionistic to the point of pure dread, but powerful by the same measure. To have achieved a value of R3.4 million at auction is as much a testament to the remarkable force of De Bruyckere’s art as it is to the humanity of a buyer’s apperceptions of a wrenching pathos in the vale of tears. 18