Hyper
Tampere Art Museum brings to the city the most interesting international artists in hyper-realistic sculpture from fifty years. HYPER takes the viewer directly to the skin, close to humanity. The works explore the relationship between life and death, reality and fantasy, human and machine, as well as various deformations of the human body. In hyperrealistic pieces, narrative and surprising elements merge with the precise depiction of reality. The sculptures in HYPER are technically skilful, depicting the human body as it is, down to the smallest detail, such as a pore, a wrinkle, facial hair and droplets of sweat. The subjects are everyday situations, ordinary people and the diversity of human existence. This makes the viewing experience strikingly real and immersive.
The works often seem more real than reality itself. Hence the name of the genre, Hyperrealism. Hyperrealism emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States and Europe as a reaction to abstract expressionism.
In HYPER, Zharko Basheski’s giant man rises through the floor, a Glaser/Kuntz sculpture talks on the phone and a woman peels out of a banana sculpture by Mel Ramos. The artists in the exhibition are some of the key names in hyper-realistic sculpture, from classics to contemporary art. In total, there are works by 27 artists.
