"Avec Le Temps - In Time" Exhibition

Robert Miller Gallery

poster for "Avec Le Temps - In Time" Exhibition

This event has ended.

Curated by Tim Goossens, this inter-generational exhibition will include nine contemporary artists who live and work in Belgium. A number of the artists included in this exhibition are either debuting in the United States or presenting installations created especially for the occasion.

The title of the exhibition is derived from a song by the late Leo Ferré, and the works included bear references to time: either in a formal time-based, performative way or in direct reference to history, nostalgia, memory, reproduction and a fading in time. Encompassing artists from both a newer generation and those that are internationally recognized, the exhibition aims to give an overview of the Belgian contemporary art scene of today. This flourishing scene capitalizes on the country’s central location and its long history of artistic support to create a productive art center.

Works in the exhibition include the installation Time’s Grave by the young Brussels-based artist Fabrice Samyn (b. 1982), which shows an oversized hand-blown hour glass. Huge amounts of sand, visible from the street, spill out over the floor of the gallery to welcome the visitor. Also on view are Samyn’s large scale photographs of various Old Masters paintings detailing the navels of Adam and Eve. As the first humans in the Christian tradition, they are not supposed to have these human marks of our ascendance. By blowing up these images, the viewer recognizes abstract forms that recall patterns of stars in the night sky, which – in their turn - recall the beginning of history, and humanity.

In the adjacent gallery, Pieter Vermeersch’s (b. 1973) ambitious installation combines an intervention on the window of the gallery with an installation of color gradation on the wall. The piece changes constantly under the influence of day light, thus challenging the veracity of the viewer’s optical perception and engaging the history of painterly reproductions of those perceptions and the distortions inherent to that tradition.

Dirk Braeckman’s (b. 1958) photographs, the majority of them in black and white, focus on abstract spaces, domestic interiors and other loci of the built environment. The subtle range of tone and the extraordinary matte surface of his gelatin silver prints give these images an enigmatic presence. Flatness and depth become difficult to discern, paradoxical.

A 16 mm projection by Els Opsomer (b. 1968) documents the activity in an Istanbul square during the annual two minute silence commemorating Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey. In this national ritual, which begins at 9:05 a.m. on November 10th – the exact moment of his death, time stands still. The entire country stops all activities, including all vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

Black-outs by the Dutch-born artist Willem Oorebeek (b. 1953) provide an example of his practice of covering found images with a layer of black ink, thus creating subtle surfaces wherein the viewer discovers traces of the original depictions.

The idea of what is real and what is fake is further questioned in the works of sculptor Koenraad Dedobbeleer (b. 1975). By synthesizing what appear to be found objects, the artist engages in a non-scientific study of possibilities.

Similar research is also apparent in the work of Edith Dekyndt (b. 1960): the video projection Martial M explores the phenomena of the magnetism of the Earth in a surprisingly poetic way, giving proof of how the artist’s conceptually and theoretically rigorous processes do not exclude a subjective answer.

Stephan Balleux’s (b. 1974) large scale oil paintings debate the reality of materiality. In these recent works the artist constantly questions the continuing role of painting in times of digital reproduction and virtual worlds.

For the opening event on November 5, the Belgian musician Tim Van Hamel (b. 1977, dEUS, Millionaire, Queens of the Stone Age) will perform in a debut collaboration with the visual artist Philip Metten (b. 1977). This performance, especially created for the exhibition, will use a sound costume with imbedded electronic pads and neon lights.

[Image: Edith Dekyndt "Grey Song" (detail) (1996-2009)]

Media

Schedule

from November 05, 2009 to December 23, 2009

Opening Reception on 2009-11-05 from 18:00 to 20:00

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