woensdag 26 februari 2014

'Forcefield - drawing show' open on Saturdays 14 - 18 h.

Forcefield – drawing show
22 February – 14 June 2014
Open on Saturdays 14 – 18 h.
Philippe Van Snick, (0-9)K 4, 1980, gouache and pencil on paper, 42 x 30 cm each

maandag 24 februari 2014

'Forcefield - drawing show' open on Saturdays 14 - 18 h.

Forcefield – drawing show
Opening on Saturday 22 February, 16 – 19 h.
22 February – 14 June 2014
Open on Saturdays 14 – 18 h.
the opening of 'Forcefield - drawing show' on Saturday 22 February 2014

zondag 23 februari 2014

'Forcefield - drawing show' opening

from left to right: Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, (top) Ina van Zyl,
(bottom) Marc Nagtzaam, Francis Newton Souza

various artists

the opening of 'Forcefield - drawing show' on Saturday 22 February 2014

the opening of 'Forcefield - drawing show'
on Saturday 22 February 2014

dinsdag 18 februari 2014

'Forcefield - drawing show' accrochage

















Forcefield – drawing show
Opening on Saturday 22 February, 16 – 19 h.
22 February – 14 June 2014
Open on Saturdays 14 – 18 h.

Artists:

Emma Kunz
Francis Newton Souza
Juul Kraijer
Arie de Groot
Chris Baaten
Bert Boogaard
Bernd Lohaus
Carlos Kusnir
Hans Hoekstra
Jos de Gruyter en Harald Thys
Ina van Zyl
Jacob Zekveld
Jan Roeland
Jean Raine
Mariëtte Linders                 
Adrien Lucca
Marc Nagtzaam
Michaël Van den Abeele                 
Michel Gouéry
Mitja Tusek
Philippe Vandenberg
Marisa Rappard
Philippe Van Snick
Ronald Cornelissen
Saadi Souami
Sebastian Gögel                 
Tina Schulz
Elmar Trenkwalder
Vaclav Pozarek
Valérie Mannaerts
Mark Manders
Henk Visch


Ulrich Loock, lecture at the Institut de Carton, Brussels 21 December 2013


Jan Andriesse, lecture at the Institut de Carton, Brussels, 21 December 2013
The subject matter of the painting by Torrentius is temperance. When I saw Jan's film however I thought the issue was exuberance.
The pleasure the narrator takes in telling the life story of Torrentius is obvious. The grain of the voice, the rounded, sonorous way of pronouncing those outrageous things. It is a story of rule-breaking, luxury, suffering, resurrection, repeated downfall, oblivion and final, grotesque rediscovery. Be it only for a lack of sufficient information, this painter's fate appears as an exemplary human fate – or maybe just as fate – and his name seems significant: Torrentius, the violent current. Is he the violent current himself or is he the one who is caught in the current, thrown here and there and pulled away from any firm ground? It is the narrator's pleasure to tell the story of a person of exception, a person, one may imagine, who has faced the abyss – actually neither the English nor the French language offer an appropriate word for the German “Abgrund” or the Dutch “afgrond” or the Italian “sfondamento”: the sheer lack of any ground, any base or support, any original and reliable level of reference. 
At first the film is showing nothing or close to nothing. Or even more correctly: it is showing complete darkness (or rather a darkness that is as complete as a video projection allows). I want to remind you at this point that the philosopher Giorgio Agamben has mentioned that darkness is not just an effect of the absence of light, but a state of things that is perceived by activating specific darkness receptors in the eye. You have to see darkness. Darkness corresponding to a tiny spot at the centre of the painting of Torrentius fills the screen to its edges and merges with the darkness of the projection room, until the camera slowly starts to zoom out. It continues to zoom out until all of the circular painting including its octagonal, black-brown and glossy frame is seen to fill the screen. Soon after the start of the zooming a few bright specks, a few grains of luminous dust can be noticed to interrupt the darkness. Slowly slowly more spots manifest themselves... rather violently, unexpectedly and seemingly out of place a larger bright shape intrudes. Different readings are possible. The most compelling one refers to the universe, to light traveling from stars that may have ceased to exist thousands of years ago, disembodied light. Light on the edge of being lost in the overwhelming darkness, making darkness darker, letting a vast emptiness emerge.
At one point of the slow movement of the zoom that matches the relentless advancing of the narration – that is what I seem to remember – at one point the typical shape of a window's cross bar can be distinguished. The movement continues from the universe to the space of a domestic interior. A smooth movement that covers the most incredible distance between outside and inside. The passage from inside to outside, from outside to inside: a specifically Dutch theme, Pieter de Hooch. Finally the objects of the still life become identifiable, two pitchers framing a glass, a bridle, two pipes turned down, a music score. Only the allegoric subtext of the painting of Torrentius legitimizes this crazy composition.
Visible are the elements of a painting from the 17th century carved out by light that enters from an unrevealed source – curved shiny surfaces collecting light that otherwise would remain invisible. The presence of light illuminating several objects that are crowding a domestic space however has obscured the cosmic light sources. Now the light is brighter, the objects are exposing their identity beyond doubt, but the origin of the light has been lost. More light, more visibility, the increasing concreteness of objects create a continuous growth of invisibility. One wishes in vain to return to the first moments of nascent light and the initial punctuation of the bleak emptiness of the screen.
The filming of the allegorical painting creates itself an allegorical condition. Including a cosmic dimension it seems even richer and more challenging that the dimension of the original allegory. Was this intended? Was Jan aware that he would initiate such a revelation? Maybe not. Maybe revelation is here nothing but the unintended effect of a mechanical practice. But he must have known or assumed something. I guess that Jan was attracted to the analogy of the circular painting to the shape and the function of the camera lens and ultimately the human eye. Should one say that the movement of the zoom represents the opening of the eye, the growth of the power of identification, the loss of the intimate connection to cosmic space with its precarious illumination that has been our home for ages on end – our lost home that one can maybe only remember when facing the existential abyss?