I had the opportunity to visit NYC and go to the Almine Rech galley's show of Kurt Kauper's WOMEN. The show exhibited three very large scale (88" x 58") portraits of different women as well as four drawings made in study for the work. Kauper's portraits were done in a master-like academic style, glorifying each woman in the rich history. As well as being inspired by historical painting styles, Kauper titles the works, Woman 2, 3, 4, which brings the viewer to connect his inspiration to de Kooning's Woman series. The structure of each woman is square, head on and stable much like the Ancient Greek kouros sculptures.
Kauper means for his figures to be nude not erotic, strong not vulnerable and in a sense I completely agree with him. But in some way, possibly in the way the women are numbered or how all of their bits are so neatly displayed for the the viewer to ponder over, they seem like specimens. One begins to think about horse and slave markets, the latter which was so often portrayed by 19th century academic painters, which Kauper borrows much of his painting style from. Another signifier for me is that the only mark of jewelry or any adornment on any of the women is a slender gold bracelet on the wrist of the African figure. Why does she have any jewelry and why her? Seems gratuitous unless this is exactly what he wants the viewer to ponder, an amazonian strong stable figure in contrast to the historical context of the female nude on display.
