The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dole presents Conversation, Anthony Cudahy’s first exhibition in a French institution from 28 April - 10 September 2023. For the occasion of the exhibition, the New York artist has established a dialog between his own paintings and those of the museum’s collection, thus paying tribute to European painting, which he holds in great esteem. However, rather than taking the collection’s masterpieces as a starting point, the artist has selected works of often forgotten origin, making no distinction between period or style. His choice was frequently guided by subject matter, in resonance with his own works, produced either prior to the exhibition or more recently. Out of the sixty-one art works on show at the Dole museum, thirty-three were created specifically for the exhibition.
In his paintings, Anthony Cudahy brings together extremely diverse references, which he incorporates in a chain of transformations. The flowers, amorous poses and portraits of his loved ones from his repertoire explore the romantic, tender and intimate registers. In an unrestrained interplay of intertwined meanings, his images, charged with affects and his own musings, swing between realism and symbolism and hint at the multitude of threads to be disentangled and reconnected. The exhibition begins with the wooden door of the Dole Parliament - the formercapital of Franche-Comté - symbolically inviting us into the artist’s intimate world. It continues with a series of paintings from the museum’s reserves whose subjects are often trivial or picturesque: A printer’s workshop, the Tower of Babel, a Sabbath scene, various still lifes and landscapes dotted with ruins, water nymphs and other figures. These fragile relics form the basis of a conversation that enriches Anthony Cudahy’s own mythology with new metamorphoses, culminating in the polyptych Lightly Held (2023), which he created for the final room of the exhibition.
The artist revisits details from the old paintings and hybridizes them in a contemporary vein. This subtle dialog - punctuated by “narrative sparks”, to cite the artist - invites us to take a fresh look at the Dole collection and to reintegrate these works into a historical narrative. This transversal approach is in keeping with the museums recent history, which over the past forty years, has sought to bring together different art forms regardless of the era in which they were created.
The artist's first monograph, Conversation, was also published in June 2023 on the occasion of the exhibition. To purchase the publication, please click here.
