Hyperrealism. 1967-2012
22 March to 9 June 2013
Advance purchase is recommended
<exchanging gazes> 5: Interior Scenes. Women and Daily Life.
New Display of the Collections
From 26 February to 10 June 2013
Ben Shahn, as much a photographer as he was a painter, often used photographs as a starting point for his paintings. In Carnival he juxtaposes an image from a photograph of a sleeping funfair stallholder with one of a couple enjoying a fairground ride. However, he uses photographs in his painting to tell a substantially different story: the stallholder asleep on the counter of a target shooting stall in the photograph becomes a sleeping visitor to the funfair, lying placidly on a bench next to a couple with their backs to the viewer, while the couple on one of the rides, in the background, takes on a rather unreal appearance in the painting as they are hovering in an indeterminate space.
Shahn creates an abstraction of his own photographs by eliminating all superfluous detail and, by decontextualising the figures and compressing the space, infuses the work with a surrealistic air and makes it a reflection on the human condition. The scene, which might otherwise appear to be a peaceful festive afternoon, is transformed by the unreal atmosphere into the visual representation of the main figure’s dream. According to Gail Levin, it is the dream of a solitary man about longing to be part of a couple; she thus interprets the painting as an expression of the feeling of loneliness.
Paloma Alarcó
Necklace The Kimono
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White Vase Morandi
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Bag Paul Klee
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Yellow Vase Morandi
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T-shirt Self-Portrait (Size L)
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Bag Wayuu
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Bag Telephone Booths
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Blue Cufflinks
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Red Cufflinks
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Blue Vase Morandi
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Bottles and Vases Paul Klee
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T-shirt Countess of Dartmouth (Size M)
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Catalogue of the Exhibition Hyperrealism 1967-2012 (Spanish edition)
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Case with Mugs Delaunay
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Pendant Vincent van Gogh
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© 2009 Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Paseo del Prado 8, 28014 Madrid, España