ART CITIES:N. York-Raoul De Keyser

Raoul De Keyser is known for his sophisticated and tempered paintings that subtly and evocatively explore the relationship between color and form. Made up of simple shapes and painterly marks, his works allude to the natural world and representational imagery, while avoiding suggestions of narrative or reductive frameworks that limit experience and interpretation. Despite—or precisely because of—their spare compositions, De Keyser’s works convey a visual intensity that inspires prolonged contemplation, mirroring the artist’s own sustained, reflective process.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: David Zwirner Gallery Archive

Raoul De Keyser was born in 1930 in Deinze, where he continued to live and work until his passing in 2012 at the age of 82. The son of a carpenter, De Keyser began to explore painting on his own during his formative teenage years. He went on to study briefly at the Academy of Fine Arts in Deinze between 1963 and 1964 under the painter Roger Raveel, and during this time, participated in New Vision, a Flemish art movement led by Raveel. While in pursuit of painting, De Keyser had a successful, three-decade career as a civil servant working for Ghent University, taking early retirement in 1990 at the age of 60. De Keyser also had a passion for literature and journalism, he befriended writers and poets, and he wrote about sports and arts for local newspapers. The influence of De Keyser’s literary flair seeps into all his paintings. The exhibition “Touch Game” features major works  with a focus on the mature phase of Raoul De Keyser at two location of David Zwirner Gallery. Throughout the course of his highly influential career, De Keyser engaged in a singular investigation of the potential expression and pictorial capabilities of abstract painting. Made up of simple shapes and painterly marks, his works allude to the natural world and representational imagery while avoiding suggestions of narrative or reductive frameworks that limit experience and interpretation. De Keyser’s ability to find new and exciting ways to invigorate his surfaces has resulted in his reception as a major influence for several generations of contemporary painters—“an artist’s artist.” Among the works that will be on view are several paintings from the 1980s, including representative works from De Keyser’s important “Zinkend” and “Hellepoort” series, which reflect a notable turn in the artist’s practice toward more dynamic, gestural facture. Specific formal elements frequently appear in these and several other seminal paintings from the 1980s and 1990s. Most notable among them is the “chalk-line” motif, which De Keyser first began incorporating into his work in the early 1970s—an important example of which will be featured in the exhibition. Like many of his recurring forms, these bold white lines originated in De Keyser’s observation of his immediate surroundings—in this case the chalk lines applied to soccer pitches and sports fields. In certain works, the lines appear as parallel crossbars that divide the support into registers, while in other works, assertive dashes of white contrast with more frenetic applications of paint, creating a kind of visual syncopation that unifies the entire composition. De Keyser’s inclusion in Jan Hoet’s highly celebrated documenta IX in Kassel, Germany, in 1992 signaled a serious turning point in the artist’s career as he started to gain greater international recognition. Several of the works in the exhibition are from this time, including “Front” (1992), which was featured at documenta. These paintings, some of which have not been exhibited previously in the United States, are notable for De Keyser’s sensitive treatment of surface, whereby figure ground distinctions appear to dissolve into sensuous clouds or diffusely rendered painterly streaks and blurs. Among the late period works that will be on view are several paintings from De Keyser’s seminal “Come on, play it again”  series from the early 2000s, which was first presented at the artist’s inaugural show of the same title at David Zwirner’s original Green Street location in New York in 2001. Each of these works seems to follow a different compositional logic, while nevertheless relying on a canny use of biomorphic and geometric forms, squares, lines, and dots. The title of the series carries a musical connotation, as if encouraging an improvisational jazz pianist, while simultaneously suggesting the possibility of infinite variation.

Photo: Raoul De Keyser, Drift, 2008, Oil on canvas, 13 5/8 x 17 1/2 inches (34.6 x 44.5 cm), Signed, titled, dated, and inscribed verso, Courtesy David Zwirner Gallery

Info: Curator: Helen Molesworth, David Zwirner Gallery, 519 & 525 West 19th Street, New York, NY, USA, Duration: 16/1-1/3/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.davidzwirner.com/