Black Matter

The work was recently acquired for the collection of Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe with funds from the Museumsstiftung Baden-Württemberg. It is now being presented to the public in Karlsruhe for the first time and is the centerpiece of a focused studio exhibition by the Kunsthalle at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, where graphic works by Pierre Soulages are also on display. At the heart of this concentrated presentation is the viewer’s direct experience of light reflections on the thickly applied black paint as they move, as well as the dynamic interplay of light and darkness, which opens up broad space for imagination and contemplation. The painting was created in the context of Soulages’s significant windows for the Romanesque abbey church in Conques and will in future be displayed within the collection of late medieval Christian art at the Kunsthalle in the ZKM.