‘eat quicksilver/ shit quicksand’
concept: mariëtte renssen
the link between mind, flesh and life is one of the thorniest problems
confronting science and philosophy. in the visual arts this issue is
often at the root of a struggle with physicality and the spirit of the
imagination. the ambiguity between an artwork and the artist is a
recurring phenomenon.
the physical laws governing the human body can change according to one’s own will and wishes. is the body able to self-regulate? does it have the power to make matter fluid, then coagulate? or is this just an illusion? read more
the physical laws governing the human body can change according to one’s own will and wishes. is the body able to self-regulate? does it have the power to make matter fluid, then coagulate? or is this just an illusion? read more
opening: friday 1 february 2002 from 18:00 to 20:00 hrs
location: five years, 40 underwood street, london uk
exhibition runs until 3 march 2002
location: five years, 40 underwood street, london uk
exhibition runs until 3 march 2002
The
eight artists in this exhibition focus on the human body – on
physicality as both theme and image. They deal with the quest for a
body that shifts to fit any conceivable circumstance, and in doing so
very possibly attempts to mould the world around it – like quicksilver
in your hand.
Each artist explores the body in their own very particular, probing way. One idea they all share is the longing to escape the body’s discomfiting and overpowering presence.
The link between mind, flesh and life is one of the thorniest problems confronting science and philosophy. In the visual arts this issue is often at the root of a struggle with physicality and the spirit of the imagination. The ambiguity between an artwork and the artist is a recurring phenomenon.
The physical laws governing the human body can change according to one’s own will and wishes. Is the body able to self-regulate? Does it have the power to make matter fluid, then coagulate? Or is this just an illusion?
All eight artists are more or less of the same generation and live or work in Amsterdam. They share a concern with the mutability of human form, using their work to play with the figure – sometimes using their own bodies – without irony. From the sturdy, fleshy Sumo wrestlers of Dirk Jan Jager to the subtle, silver figures of Caro Bensca; from the digitally manipulated self portraits of Lisa Holden to the carved wooden figures of Paul de Reus and the inside-out figures of Serge Onnen. Through the conjunction of these works a picture emerges of a physical entity that adapts to meet any situation – a benevolent body.
Powerful, dangerous, still and elusive. Quicksilver/quicksand.
Tiong Ang ‘Grid’ 2001
‘Grid’ is a video loop (from the ‘Underworld’ series) presenting a woman’s legs with a cut/scar on one of the calves intercut with the image of a man’s torso on which a grid has been drawn.
In this work, Tiong Ang marks the physical boundaries of the body. The cut in the skin causes blood to flow while a grid on the body marks both a space ‘inside’ and is at the same time the border between the body and where it enters the space around it.
Caro Bensca ‘I exist not only...’ 1998
This work is a cast aluminium sunflower, which hangs upside down from the ceiling, 2.6 metres high. A soapstone figure with three faces stands under the heart of the flower. Beside it, a hole has been dug out of the ground. The figure literally shows the differnt faces, simultaneously, of one and the same being.
As Caro Bensca explains: “I don’t only exist within my immediate environment, I told myself - and at that exact moment I felt the world’s energy gently embrace me”.
Ronald de Boer L.1. (series no.) 2001
This is a dyptich where one photo shows a morphed face that seems to be looking in three directions at once. A third ‘eye’, like a black hole, peers out of the centre. In the second photo, the face has been morphed to produce elongated features through which the play of light and shadow gain an alienating quality. Ronald takes found photographs as his starting point.
In its use of facial distortion this work reflects the theme of shifting physicality and, by extension, a distorted view of the world.
Dirk Jan Jager Untitled (Sumo) 2001
The first painting presents a back view of a Sumo wrestler about to attack. The second depicts a more ambiguous form - more meat and gristle than human being. In the first work, what strikes you first are the broad brushstrokes, the painting as an autonomous given and a variety of grey tones from which the Sumo emerges while large expanses of the body fuse with, are swallowed up by, the black background. The second painting is paler - here, the Sumo is consumed by white.
This work shows a tangible void in contrast to a quantity of fleshy paint, the boundary of presence and absence. The actual thickness and material presence of paint are a battle on canvas, transformed and given meaning - the painting itself becomes a Sumo. Dirk Jan Jager says: “My paintings are a meditation on the miraculous ability of paint to come to life”.
Lisa Holden “The Seed” series. 2000 ‘Moving Finger’. 2001
Holden’s digitally manipulated images have a distinctly painterly element. ‘The Seed’ presents a partial torso and head – the head is cropped just above the eyes giving the face an emptied look as it fades to white. In one of the photos the creature’s eyes are just visible, the gaze downcast. In the other, it gazes upward. A pale alien entity. In ‘Moving Finger’ we see a clearer head and torso. The face is partly obscured by shadow and the body and forehead have been reduced to a white smear. The hesitant line to the left is a moving arm.
The works deal with transmutation and acts as a record of the artist’s attempts to push back the boundaries of consciousness. Lisa: “The Seed series was inspired by William Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience, Shewing Two Contrary States of the Human Soul” (1794).
Serge Onnen ‘New Self’ and ‘Tranceman’. 2001
The animation ‘New Self’ is a loop of drawings that shows a new layer or new head constantly appearing from the ‘old’ head, like a sort of striptease. ‘Tranceman’ is a figure that constantly turns itself inside-out like a snake eating its own tail.
These animations were chosen because they depict constantly changing figures, a self that even goes to the extreme of pulling itself inside-out – an amorphous, shifting body that continuously self-creates.
Paul de Reus ‘Ancestor’ 2001
This three-dimensional piece shows a human figure – a young man - standing on its head. His trousers and shirt are slipping. His skull has been sawn open so that he can stare at himself. But what we see is the greying head of an old man.
Does the work show a young man looking into the future, or an old man remembering how he once was?
Mariëtte Renssen ‘Silver Line’. 2001 ‘Pied a terre’. 2001
‘Silver Line’ is a layered line drawing depicting a human figure where anemone-like forms are part of the body’s contours, creating movement suggestive of a fluid body. The drawing ‘Pied a terre’ shows only the soles of a pair of feet. The rest of the body is absent. The foot soles bear a strange array of shapes and markings… possibly some kind of map.
The theme of quicksilver and the ever-transforming body is clearly reflected in these pieces that explore the boundaries of the body. The works show a flesh and blood that is transparent – in a sense the lines, thus the figure, have become liquid. The physical has been given a strange, alienating structure. The inner and outer worlds converge.
Each artist explores the body in their own very particular, probing way. One idea they all share is the longing to escape the body’s discomfiting and overpowering presence.
The link between mind, flesh and life is one of the thorniest problems confronting science and philosophy. In the visual arts this issue is often at the root of a struggle with physicality and the spirit of the imagination. The ambiguity between an artwork and the artist is a recurring phenomenon.
The physical laws governing the human body can change according to one’s own will and wishes. Is the body able to self-regulate? Does it have the power to make matter fluid, then coagulate? Or is this just an illusion?
All eight artists are more or less of the same generation and live or work in Amsterdam. They share a concern with the mutability of human form, using their work to play with the figure – sometimes using their own bodies – without irony. From the sturdy, fleshy Sumo wrestlers of Dirk Jan Jager to the subtle, silver figures of Caro Bensca; from the digitally manipulated self portraits of Lisa Holden to the carved wooden figures of Paul de Reus and the inside-out figures of Serge Onnen. Through the conjunction of these works a picture emerges of a physical entity that adapts to meet any situation – a benevolent body.
Powerful, dangerous, still and elusive. Quicksilver/quicksand.
Tiong Ang ‘Grid’ 2001
‘Grid’ is a video loop (from the ‘Underworld’ series) presenting a woman’s legs with a cut/scar on one of the calves intercut with the image of a man’s torso on which a grid has been drawn.
In this work, Tiong Ang marks the physical boundaries of the body. The cut in the skin causes blood to flow while a grid on the body marks both a space ‘inside’ and is at the same time the border between the body and where it enters the space around it.
Caro Bensca ‘I exist not only...’ 1998
This work is a cast aluminium sunflower, which hangs upside down from the ceiling, 2.6 metres high. A soapstone figure with three faces stands under the heart of the flower. Beside it, a hole has been dug out of the ground. The figure literally shows the differnt faces, simultaneously, of one and the same being.
As Caro Bensca explains: “I don’t only exist within my immediate environment, I told myself - and at that exact moment I felt the world’s energy gently embrace me”.
Ronald de Boer L.1. (series no.) 2001
This is a dyptich where one photo shows a morphed face that seems to be looking in three directions at once. A third ‘eye’, like a black hole, peers out of the centre. In the second photo, the face has been morphed to produce elongated features through which the play of light and shadow gain an alienating quality. Ronald takes found photographs as his starting point.
In its use of facial distortion this work reflects the theme of shifting physicality and, by extension, a distorted view of the world.
Dirk Jan Jager Untitled (Sumo) 2001
The first painting presents a back view of a Sumo wrestler about to attack. The second depicts a more ambiguous form - more meat and gristle than human being. In the first work, what strikes you first are the broad brushstrokes, the painting as an autonomous given and a variety of grey tones from which the Sumo emerges while large expanses of the body fuse with, are swallowed up by, the black background. The second painting is paler - here, the Sumo is consumed by white.
This work shows a tangible void in contrast to a quantity of fleshy paint, the boundary of presence and absence. The actual thickness and material presence of paint are a battle on canvas, transformed and given meaning - the painting itself becomes a Sumo. Dirk Jan Jager says: “My paintings are a meditation on the miraculous ability of paint to come to life”.
Lisa Holden “The Seed” series. 2000 ‘Moving Finger’. 2001
Holden’s digitally manipulated images have a distinctly painterly element. ‘The Seed’ presents a partial torso and head – the head is cropped just above the eyes giving the face an emptied look as it fades to white. In one of the photos the creature’s eyes are just visible, the gaze downcast. In the other, it gazes upward. A pale alien entity. In ‘Moving Finger’ we see a clearer head and torso. The face is partly obscured by shadow and the body and forehead have been reduced to a white smear. The hesitant line to the left is a moving arm.
The works deal with transmutation and acts as a record of the artist’s attempts to push back the boundaries of consciousness. Lisa: “The Seed series was inspired by William Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience, Shewing Two Contrary States of the Human Soul” (1794).
Serge Onnen ‘New Self’ and ‘Tranceman’. 2001
The animation ‘New Self’ is a loop of drawings that shows a new layer or new head constantly appearing from the ‘old’ head, like a sort of striptease. ‘Tranceman’ is a figure that constantly turns itself inside-out like a snake eating its own tail.
These animations were chosen because they depict constantly changing figures, a self that even goes to the extreme of pulling itself inside-out – an amorphous, shifting body that continuously self-creates.
Paul de Reus ‘Ancestor’ 2001
This three-dimensional piece shows a human figure – a young man - standing on its head. His trousers and shirt are slipping. His skull has been sawn open so that he can stare at himself. But what we see is the greying head of an old man.
Does the work show a young man looking into the future, or an old man remembering how he once was?
Mariëtte Renssen ‘Silver Line’. 2001 ‘Pied a terre’. 2001
‘Silver Line’ is a layered line drawing depicting a human figure where anemone-like forms are part of the body’s contours, creating movement suggestive of a fluid body. The drawing ‘Pied a terre’ shows only the soles of a pair of feet. The rest of the body is absent. The foot soles bear a strange array of shapes and markings… possibly some kind of map.
The theme of quicksilver and the ever-transforming body is clearly reflected in these pieces that explore the boundaries of the body. The works show a flesh and blood that is transparent – in a sense the lines, thus the figure, have become liquid. The physical has been given a strange, alienating structure. The inner and outer worlds converge.
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