Thilo WestermannSouvenir de Baden-Baden

Writing, stippling, exposing and assembled time – Thilo Westermann’s poetic survey between nature, scientific investigation and history leads us directly into “Souvenir de Baden-Baden.” Thilo Westermann provides an insight into the letters that the artist and art historian has been writing since 2018 to Napoleon’s adopted daughter and former Grand Duchess of Baden, Stéphanie de Beauharnais (1789–1860). As though she were a still living art collector, he reports to her on his work. In doing so, the handwritten letters go far beyond a discussion of his own oeuvre: they deal with political and social events of recent years and at times take the form of treatises in cultural studies, for instance on the colonial background of the garden of the Château de Malmaison near Paris or on the consequences of Napoleon’s expansionist policies. Westermann’s own media are reverse glass paintings and photomontages. With his “Correspondance avec Stéphanie” he now presents a work as precise as it is astute, one that critically reflects on history and the present. Contributions by such renowned scholars as Markus A. Castor (Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte Paris) introduce Westermann’s œuvre; Dominique de Font-Réaulx (Louvre Paris) turns to the interface between painting and photography; Magali Nachtergael (Université Bordeaux-Montaigne) and Anne Reverseau (UCLouvain) examine the relevance of the written word between visual art and literature; Harriet Zilch (Kunsthalle Nürnberg) asks in conclusion what it would mean if we were to think of history not linearly but circularly and could thus add to our picture of the past again and again. Full-page reproductions of works and of the handwritten letters underline the bibliophile side of this project, in which, in addition, hitherto unpublished letters by Stéphanie de Beauharnais herself are published for the first time.

Exhibition: Thilo Westermann et l’art de dessiner sous verre
Vitromusée Romont, Suisse: 6/3 – 25/9/2022