On the Lookout

(b. 1973, Courtrai, Belgium) currently lives and works in Turin. In addition to his series of paintings on canvas or marble, his work includes murals or spatial interventions which transform a given space. While passing from light to dark, his chromatically muted work refers to the degree zero of painting. The gradation is always, for him, a demonstration of the range of values of pure and flat color, as used in the history of painting to create the illusion of depth. His practice even seems to submit to the influence of light, whose effects he studies in a photographic sense. He obtains a representation of the behavior of light and paint combined with a description of real space, all in one image. In the brightest and darkest tones, the image thus recedes into abstraction. The artist questions the concept of ‘immobility’ and the phenomenal movement of an image which, when one looks at it long enough, seems to transform itself before the eyes of the spectator. His works trigger infinitesimal perceptual experiences, presenting us with a sense of color that refers to the space between appearance and disappearance.

The installation commissioned for this exhibition deploys itself into a long gradient of color over 24 meters. In tension with the architecture, three surfaces coexist: an angled mural interspersed with a large canvas. The boundaries between the immaterial and the tangible, between space and time, become blurred. The artist pushes the limits of painting and his work is distinguished by an intense experience of the conditions of visuality. His laborious process, despite the concealment of the gesture, is at the service of a refined content and a heightened tension between the prosaic and the sublime.

(b. 1976, Brest, France) lives and works in Paris. After following the philosophy courses of Derrida and Didi-Huerman, she deepened her interest in the relations between physics and metaphysics. She also investigates natural phenomena and their infinite interpretations elaborated by human beings, in order to understand them. She pushes back, with strength, the limits of the space and materials. Her multidisciplinary practice is also, paradoxically, characterized by delicacy. This duality allows her to expand her vocabulary of forms, colors and textures, by overcoming the known limitations of the techniques she uses. This way, she creates new processes, sometimes applicable in the field of construction. She transforms each industrial process skilfully diverted, each material meticulously considered, and each site intensely invested. Following the footsteps of Richard Serra, her work blurs the boundaries between architecture and sculpture.

Swing is made up of more than twenty strips of flexible cold blue PVC, that are deployed at regular intervals of 30 cm. This monumental installation invites the viewer to engage and walk-through freely. The artist creates an immersive space for an empirical perception of the density of matter, color and movement. Her sensual interpretation of this industrial material is at play with the movements of air and bodies, and the oscillations between light and shadows. She transforms the architecture to reveal its intrinsic qualities and open up a new visual and physical experience with an open circulation.

(b. 1988, Toulouse) lives and works in Brussels since 2006. In our contemporary era of hyper-communication, rapid consumption and fragmented images, she explores the outer limits of human vision and attention. Her practice aims to enhance our level of presence, combining poetry and critical spirit to highlight the quantum qualities of the ordinary world surrounding us. Her artworks are subtle and permeable to provide a given space for reflection. Therefore, the implemented materials are reduced to the essential in order to confer a decisive role to the visitors’ movements – and thus influence their behaviors in space and perceptions. She mostly works in a site specific manner, even what takes shape in the studio always acquires its final form within the exhibition space.

Her series Trustful Hands are part of a protocol of trust between the artist and the person who presents them. They are composed of a minimum of two different iridescent surfaces, which are extremely similar and must be arranged in such a way as to reveal the extent of their different colors and textures from the same point of view – or in different spaces. Based on a formal simplicity, these iridescent surfaces create transitory spaces that welcome the changes induced, in time, by the surrounding light. The white of the walls is enhanced with fluorescent pigment. Thus her oeuvre highlights the portion of the space reflecting the most zenithal light, while her interferent colors vary constantly before the eyes of the visitor who can contemplate this space of infinite perception. The position of the sun is of the utmost importance, implying a relation to celestial mechanics.

(b. 1934, Celle, Allemagne) settled in Sicily in 1955, then in Milan in 1973 where she lives and works to this day. Passionate about writing, she began her Eigenschriften [Writing for oneself] series in 1968, which spread over countless pages. Then, with her Trascrizioni, she copies the appearance of the text rather than its letters, words or sentences. At the core of her oeuvre is a desire to lay bare the presence and the intrinsic choreography of words by stripping them of their meaning. Through this asemantic practice, she establishes a form of ‘universal writing’ to free language from meaning – thus exploring their visually expressive qualities. The words become without function and the tracings signify the act of writing itself. Inspired by concrete poetry, she also develops a sound practice based on a monotonous sound. Then she records herself at work, a systematic process in all her series.

For her Radical Writings series (1983 – 1996), the artist paints bands of color by applying brushstrokes each indexed to the duration of a single breath. This linear, meditative conduct gives shape to the ‘immaterial’, emphasizing on the gestural quality and the vibration. She explores the notions of time, repetition and variations in the intensity of color, which amplifies itself. In these paintings, she focuses on blue, the traditional color of ink, which also brings forth harmony and utopia. Her large two-panel painting denser in its center is similar to an open book and evokes a depth that creates a serene and immersive space.

(b. 1983, Paris, France) lives and works in Brussels since 2004 and is a teacher at École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels of La Cambre. As of 2009, he has concurrently studied Art History and Science. His research on light and color aims at sublimation through controlled parameters. He built himself a studio as a laboratory, where he also uses chemistry, spectrometry, electronics and computers to develop an artistic practice around the study of geometry, physics and perception. He meticulously records his notes and color tests in numerous notebooks. With his visual experiments of a great formal rigor, he opens the path towards experimental endeavors with colors. He studies in depth the interactions between natural and artificial light, and the colors of pigments and glass, within his installations in the public space.

Zone de fluctuation chromatique is an installation made especially for this exhibition. Dozens of small rectangles of transparent Plexiglas painted with different pigments are placed on the walls. The artist controls the light of this space where visitors are captivated while passing through. Under the influence of programmed white light sources, the elements of the installation are successively colored in a mesmerizing rhythm. The monochromes of different grey values alternate progressively with three other color palettes, from pink to turquoise. The artist creates an enclosed space for a perceptive experience, questioning the very nature of color.

LAb[au] (founded in 1997, Brussels, Belgium) is a Brussels based collective who conducts research into the relationship between art and language, not only through the use of words and other forms of coded languages (semantics) but also through signs (semiotics). Numerous oeuvres artworks of LAb[au] find their origin in definitions specific to the field of art, such as the one of the monochrome. This investigation into linguistics leads them to explore the limits of language, which can be transcribed into another medium with colors, forms and patterns constituting a visual language. The artists of LAb[au] play with syntax, grammar and vocabulary from which they seek ways to translate or transcode the various artistic expressions from one support to another, most often using algorithms. Their rule-based work examines the materiality, process and concept of art itself, exploring infinite combinations of forms. Their practice is rooted in the tradition of conceptual art, where tautologies and fundamental units such as space and time constitute the base of their artistic vocabulary.

Their new work U-238 > Pb-206 juxtaposes powder of uranium ore and lead, two different stages of the same material separated by several million years, confronting their respective yellow and gray colors. Here, the artists question the meaning of monochrome and all the fascination for the void that it carries, although this notion is not described in its definition and can only be apprehended through a broader understanding of art. Thus, they approach the tradition of painting through terminology, while contextualizing it in our contemporary world.

(b. 1983, Avignon, France) lives and works in Paris. He explores the modes of perception, in an attempt to reveal the almost perceptible and invisible. In the manner of a translator who operates a conversion to a poetic dimension, he creates artworks resulting from the study of physical phenomena and interdisciplinary concepts. His work on language often refers to art history, with a peculiar penchant for paradoxes. Even if he starts from a cognitive approach and a protocol process, he also welcomes the unexpected and subjectivity. The romantic vision of the experience initiated by the artist characterizes his works. His paintings and installations, often activated by feelings, stimulate our inner perception. This required time for contemplation allows us to deepen our own visions.

From Paysages, a series painted or filmed, his canvas transcribes the luminous patches that can be observed with closed eyelids. These fleeting visions or phenomena of phosphene are unquenchable. Light signals enter the eyes before visual perception occurs in the brain, which translates these informations into pure sensations: bursts of sensitive, moving and vibrating colors. This generic image, from a detail of another work (filmed and transformed into a photograph), shows a process that allows the artist to obtain such color combinations and a cinematic atmosphere. It is dynamic in its essence as the movement it represents. The difficulty of focusing, generated by the blur, captures and holds the visitors’ gaze, inviting them to a slow observation.

(b. 1984, Porto, Portugal) lives and works in Porto. Between 2002 and 2013, she studied in London, Critical Studies and Fine Arts at Goldsmiths College and Sculpture at the Royal College of Art. Her holistic practice embraces different mediums envisioned as a whole, including sculpture, photography, video and performance, with its documentation and artefacts. She is interested in the human condition and the psychological and behavioral phenomena that shape the individual and society. Therapeutic in nature, her work tackles topics such as belief systems and their cultural patterns. Her Crystal Beings and Crystal Balls represent social invisibility and the spiritual essence of existence. This series of inhabited artworks are often reused to convey the energy of her past performative actions within her installations.

Here, she juxtaposes and overlaps a direct intervention on the windows, with markers, and pieces made on translucent acrylic sheets. The colored elements of her Meditations series are, to date, her most soothing artworks. These transcribe the frequency of the strokes of color made with her hand. Her meditative artworks on color are rid of human figuration and information to focus on the minimal essence of life. Along with the influences felt during the realization of her work, the artist attempts a healing with color, while recomposing the space. By appropriating the light-filled surfaces of the inner courtyard, she emphasizes its very function, creating a new introspective landscape.

(b. 1956, Folkestone, UK) is a Belgian artist who lives and works in Brussels. She has developed, since the late 1980s, an artistic practice based on light, color and natural optical phenomena. She continuously experiments with the characteristic attributes of carefully chosen and often intangible materials (glass, mirrors, aluminium, artificial mist), shapes and light, interacting with our perception of reality to create a recurrent vocabulary of minimalist motifs and beautiful colors. Her use of light is driven by the desire to show the manifestation of reality in a different way. She tries less to grasp the impalpable and chooses to experiment with its multiple forms and apparitions instead. For her, art consists not of an object but is an experience in itself. The sculpture becomes a place of perception. Consequently, the tools and the palette of her works are an evolving configuration: they depend on the sensation, the experience, and the singularity of each viewer. The journey is always unpredictable and personal, as the observer is confronted with the perception of the “elusive”. Janssens creates experiences of instability and fragility – whether visual, physical, temporal, or psychological – and seeks to heighten our awareness of these fleeting sensory phenomena.

Under the glass roof, Frisson bleu, her big plate of dichroic couloured-glass, hammered, appears subtly before submerging the visitor. Within this encounter, the body and the mind oscillate continuously between contemplation and immersion. The sensory experience is prolonged in the quest for the different states of a transformed light. Therefore, the illusion of a possible materiality to the variations of colors arises.