The artist
Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere, represented by Galleria Continua and Hauser & Wirth, born in 1964 in Ghent where she lives and works, creates sculptures, drawings and in situ installations that explore the body, vulnerability and transcendence. Working in materials such as wax, animal skin, textile, wood and metal, her practice draws on religious iconography, mythology and the Flemish Renaissance tradition, yet these sources are only part of her inspiration. The images she encounters in daily newspapers — of the current tumultuous state of the world — are equally important and surprisingly closely connected to those other sources. De Bruyckere graduated from the LUCA School of Arts in Ghent in 1986 and received the Young Belgian Art Prize in 1989. Her work has been presented internationally, including at MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, MOCO Montpellier, KUB Bregenz and Maison Rouge, and she represented Belgium at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. Most recently, she presented City of Refuge III at the Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore Cathedral during the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024.
The new work
The new work Berlinde De Bruyckere has made for the Offsite Arts presentation brings a female body and an angelic presence into one form. The figure lies on a pedestal, but unlike the stillness of the Liggende Arcangeli series that preceded it, the body is in turmoil: feet clasping, legs tense, back twisted, one shoulder pressing forward like Mary Magdalene's in Caravaggio's painting.
The pedestal itself is part of this disturbance. The same linoleum that appeared in Liggende Arcangelo III (2023) has been torn, darkened and folded into pleats until it resembles heavy fabric — the kind of draped cloth that Caravaggio painted — and, at the same time, the remains of a ruined surface. Dark shreds cover the top of the base, deepening the sense of ruin and disaster. The sculpture makes a direct link between the intimate body and the violence of recent history.
The figure's skin carries this distress in its detail. Dark bruises mark the heels, a small but devastating sign of a long-suffered journey, as if the body had been dragged to the limits of endurance.
See the work in Berlin
The commission is on view in Caravaggio × Berlinde De Bruyckere, 11 to 25 September 2026. Admission is free and requires advance registration.