For this new edition of Crossroads curator Alice Smits has invited the artist Diederik Klomberg to throw a new light on the space of outLINE. As outLINE is housed in a unique architectural location, this was for Alice Smits strong impetus to select an artist who takes space itself as his material.

The work of Diederik Klomberg is characterized by an attention to our perception of the spaces in which we find ourselves. Through means of colour and line he intervenes in an environment, to influence and centralize our experience of the space. The viewer is invited to reflect on his/her process of looking and experiencing. Since Klomberg's work functions on the sensorial level and its meaning ultimately lies in a non verbal experience, it resists easy description, in spite of the fact that the elements are easily detailed.

Specifically for this exhibition, Klomberg will create the work RGB. The unique three part structure of outLINE which consists of a middle part with central dome and two ante chambers, will be strictly separated by assigning each part a distinct colour: floor, wall, ceiling and details such as outlets, windows and heating system will be painted in monochrome. The title RGB (red-green-blue) refers to a term used in colour theory. Additive colour mixing consists of additions of the light of individual colours which results in other colours: when three light sources with the primary colours of red, green and blue are absorbed together the result is white.

The work RGB makes reference to painting as well as to video images. As in painting an illusory tension between 2- and 3 dimensionality is created by the interplay of distinct intensities of colour. But instead of taking the flat surface as his starting point Klomberg draws from the space which we inhabit. Simultaneously a reference is made to video screens that are based on additive colour mixing, in which each of the three light sources is formed by one pixel. As with a television image the light in this work shines through the material instead of reflected on it. Where the separation between the colours occurs, the illusion is being created as if a transparent colour screen is placed in between the sections. Colours have as much a spatial as an emotional weight: we define colours in terms of heavy-light, happy-sombre, warm-cold, near-distant. Combined with the colour filters covering the windows which ensure that only filtered day light can enter the building, an unreal and disorienting experience of space occurs.

Klomberg’s work is thus a play with sensorial and optical perception. His work does not set out to dismantle the illusion but rather explores the potential reality of the illusion. Optical illusions are being created which are played out against the factual knowledge we possess. With RGB a work is created in which the space is being felt and experienced, and we encounter the space of outLINE in a new way.

Diederik Klomberg is a visual artist who lives and works in Rotterdam since 1990. He studied graphic art at the Koninklijke Academie voor beeldende kunst en vormgeving in 's- Hertogenbosch and at Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. After his graduation Klomberg realized environmental installations in several musea, artist-initiatives and commissions in public space such as the “Droog Water“-project at the Zuid-As in Amsterdam from 2003, at the Stadsgevangenis in Hoogvliet 2001 or the “Zen in “t Bat“ in Venlo last year in collaborator with Nico Parlevliet. Diederik is teacher at AVANS Hogeschool in Breda and tought at several Art-academies in the past few years.

Alice Smits is an art historian and freelance curator and critic. She curated exhibitions in New York and Amsterdam including Avoiding Objects (Apex Art, NY), Elsewhere (HereArt, NY), Hotel NY (PS1, NY), Going Places, Crafting Space, A Snare for the Eye and Thresholding (Smart Project Space, Amsterdam). She has organised in different locations performances, talks and screening programmes. Since 2004 she is the co-director of the Amakula Kampala International Film Festival in Uganda. Currently she co-curates the series Images on the Move in which films are shown in unique architectural locations in Amsterdam. She published articles for Metropolis M, De Witte Raaf and several catalogues. She is currently producing her first documentary film and is a guitarist in the improvisation band Oorbeek.

Visit www.klomberg.info for more information on projects.

finissage friday 16th of february 2009 19.00 - 21.00 hrs
special music event : concert oorbeek !
... a collective of artists, musicians and theorists
in other words: a band -- we love free improv (and fun). we say:
'oorbeek always begins anew. oorbeek frees sound'.