The Bruce High Quality Foundation

About

Baroque, from the Portuguese borroco, meaning "a rough or imperfect pearl," characterises a stylistic turn, quite pronounced at the turn of the 17th century, away from the order of the Renaissance and toward theatrical narrative. Caravaggio's chiaroscuro, Rubens' saturated colour and sweeping lines, and Poussin's narrativised landscape space all interfere with static geometric hierarchies to lead a viewer through the emotional experience of a story. 

With their new exhibition, Pearls, The Bruce High Quality Foundation appropriates images of several exemplary works of the Baroque style by these three masters. Areas of colour have been designated by an algorithmically determined stepped contrast scale, and move from dark to light through pigment saturation and the hue spectrum at a fixed rate. Meanwhile, automatic writing, drawing and scrawling – as though the paintings were used as chalkboards by various interlocutors in the Bruce's free university – interfere with the order of the universe, drawing a parallel between the mythological and religious drama of the Baroque masterpieces and the psychodrama of collaborative learning. 

About The Bruce High Quality Foundation

The Bruce High Quality Foundation, the official arbiter of the estate of Bruce High Quality, is dedicated to the preservation of the legacy of the late social sculptor, Bruce High Quality. In the spirit of the life and work of Bruce High Quality, we aspire to invest the experience of public space with wonder, to resurrect art history from the bowels of despair, and to impregnate the institutions of art with the joy of man’s desiring.

Professional Challenges. Amateur Solutions.

The Bruce High Quality Foundation creates installations, videos, paintings, sculptures, performances, and institutions that reveal their collective creative agency within the seemingly monolithic forces of art and social history. Recent solo exhibitions include Brooklyn Museum, New York; Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin; Almine Rech Gallery, Brussels, Lever House Art Collection, New York; Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich and Vito Schnabel Gallery, New York. Recent group exhibitions include Parrish Art Museum, New York; MoMA PS1, New York and Centre Pompidou, Paris. The Bruce High Quality Foundation was included in the Whitney Biennial (2010) and the Lyon Biennale (2013). BHQF was ranked 99 in Art Review’s 2010 guide to the 100 most powerful figures in contemporary art. BHQF has instigated numerous projects, including The Bruce High Quality Foundation University, which provide learning opportunities and residencies for artists.

For further information please contact Jonathan Horrocks, jonathan@houldsworth.co.uk.