Michael Raedecker

donated by the artist

Some recent solo exhibitions
GEM, museum of contemporary art, The Hague 2009, 'Line-up'
Andrea Rosen Gallery 2, New York 2006, 'up'
The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin 2005
Salzburger Kunstverein, 2004, 'forevernevermore'

Some recent group exhibitions
De Kunsthal, Rotterdam 2009, '200 jaar Prix de Rome'
Saatchi Gallery, London 2005, 'The Triumph of Painting. 20th Anniversary exhibition'
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London 2004, 'Edge of the Real. A painting show'

Selected publications
Maarten Bertheux [et al.], Encounters with modernism: highlights from the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum 2004
Michael Raedecker: instinction, Basel: Museum für Gegenwartskunst 2002

Selected public and corporate collections
Saatchi Collection, London, UK • Sammlung Goetz, Munich, DE • Tate Collection, London, UK • Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NL

Typical of Michael Raedecker's paintings is a sense of detachment and a specific use of materials: he applies textile and embroidery to an acrylic-painted background. This unique use of materials is possibly the legacy of his training in fashion design. In many cases, his paintings are inspired by photographs that he strips back to the essence. Ranging from still lifes to flower studies, his themes also include empty haunting images of the exterior of a bungalow, a desolate square and laundry blowing in the wind – scenes from which the human presence is conspicuously absent. Raedecker covers his canvases in several thin layers of paint, defining the visual elements of the scene by using very little colour, completing the works with stitching. Raedecker selected this work for the auction because it was painted while he was a resident at the Rijksakademie and is part of the very first series of paintings in which he combined paint and thread, a technique he still uses. 'Embroidery is a craft. It is a hobby, like Sunday painting; embroidery doesn't have a status. I had a lot of respect for painting, its history and what had been done by major artists before me. The world is already full of amazing paintings and I felt that if you want to add more you have to make an effort. I therefore had to be purposefully disrespectful and combine 'high'-painting, with 'low'-craft, to create new paintings.'

Michael Raedecker was resident artist at the Rijksakademie in 1993-1994.
He won the basic prize of the 1993 Prix de Rome.