Exposition — Bruxelles

PERPETUAL CONSTRUCTION

A DIALOGUE WITH THE HOUSE OF JEAN PROUVÉ III

Du 05/09/2017 au 05/12/2017

avec

Katinka Bock, Simon Callery, Nina Canell, James Capper, Jordi Colomer, Jose Davila, Thea Djordjadze , Gabriel Kuri, Mountaincutters, Driss Ouadahi, Oscar Tuazon, Lena Verijke, Philippe Van Wolputte, Christoph Weber

Cette exposition, conçue comme un chantier urbain, dessine un parallèle avec le climat de reconstruction de l’après-guerre dans lequel Jean Prouvé crée ses Maisons Démontables 6x6m en 1944, des refuges temporaires pour les personnes ayant perdu leur maison pendant la guerre et qui tentent de reconstruire leur vie.

En perpétuelle construction, les environnements que nous occupons sont confrontés à une urbanisation exponentielle, dans un processus constant de désintégration et de renaissance. Perpetual Construction attire notre attention sur la façon dont nous organisons, contrôlons et habitons cet espace. Elle met l’accent sur les processus séquentiels cycliques de la construction, la déconstruction et de la reconstruction appliqués au tissu urbain et leur influence sur nos rythmes de vie individuels et collectifs. L’accélération de ces changements pose la question des mécanismes de pouvoir qui influencent nos modes de vies et nos interactions dans les villes.

Les artistes Jordi Colomer (b. 1962, Barcelone), Driss Ouadahi (b. 1959, Casablanca), Simon Callery (b. 1960, Londres) et Philippe Van Wolputte (b. 1982, Anvers) s’interrogent sur notre cohabitation, notre occupation même de l’espace public, sa privatisation et les restrictions imposées à la liberté et à l’expression humaines dans une ville. La notion d’utopie ou d’architecture idéologique y est inhérente.

D’autres artistes tels que, Gabriel Kuri (b. 1970, Mexico City), Oscar Tuazon (b. 1975, Seattle) et Nina Canell (b. 1979, Växjö), abordent la réutilisation des déchets et des sous-produits de consommation. Ils questionnent ainsi la façon dont le capitalisme modifie le paysage des villes. Comment faire pour atténuer cette obsession consumériste qui pénètre presque toutes les interactions au sein des métropoles? Comment le système de consommation contemporain peut-il être réorienté et comment la déconstruction peut-elle donner lieu à de nouveaux débuts?

En combinant des matériaux à la fois fragiles et intimes avec du béton brut, de la pierre et d’autres textures propres à l’esthétique urbaine, Katinka Bock (b. 1976, Frankfurt am Main), Thea Djordjadze (b. 1971, Tsibili) et le collectif français mountaincutters (b. 1990, Marseille) installent une approche plus poétique qui introduit une présence humaine et brouillent les lignes entre les matières naturelles et celles créées par l’homme.

Enfin, les installations de James Capper (b. 1987, Londres), Christoph Weber (b. 1974, Vienne), Lena Verijke (b. 1994, Anvers) et Jose Davila (b. 1974, Guadelajara) emploient divers matériaux utilisés dans les sites de constructions et s’inscrivent ainsi dans la tradition de l’architecture contemporaine tout en questionnant les rouages de celle-ci.

A travers ses différents projets d’artistes belges et internationaux, Perpetual Construction, explore la ville comme un biotope chaotique mais capable de s’auto-organiser.

Perpetual Construction est une exposition qui a été conçue et realisé par l’équipe de CAB.

Katinka Bock, Grosse Kreise, blau, Ceramics, steel, fabric, 2014, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Jocelyn Wolff

KATINKA BOCK

Born in in 1976, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Katinka Bock’s spatial interventions and sculptures explore temporality and space through materials that embody a certain history within, often organic in nature. Her work deals with questions about language, common space and sharing. Grosse Kreise, blau contains what she calls ‘receptacles’; containers with an opening and therefore the potentiality to give and receive. Her installations are at the same time precarious and vulnurable, while appearing solid and with a biography of their own, ready to endure long life cycles.

Simon Callery, Flat Painting Bodfari 14/15 Ferrous, Canvas, distemper, thread, wood, aliminium, 2016, Courtesy of the artist and FOLD Gallery

SIMON CALLERY

Born in 1960, London, United Kingdom

With an aim to explore the connection between urban space and art, Simon Callery’s idea is to mark and stain his canvas on site, resulting in tactile imprints of the terrains and locations he explores. This painting belongs to a body of work he executed working in close collaboration with archaeologists on an excavation site in Moel y Gaer, Bodfari in North Wales. The physicality of the resulting object bears the memory of this site-specific history, evoked in its worn out surface. In addition, he re-questions the limits of painting in his presentation. The Flat Painting series ironically envelop their surrounding space, generating an openness that further reinforces the viewer’s sensory engagement.

Nina Canell, Brief Syllable (Lossless)High voltage electricity cable, acrylic, concrete acrylic, 2016, Courtesy of the artist and Daniel Marzona

NINA CANELL

Born in 1979, Växjö, Sweden

In her practice, Nina Canell aims to draw attention to the networks and phenomena that surround us, and that facilitate daily contemporary life. Brief Syllables is a series of work that consists of unearthed and dissected electricity and communication cables. Unbroken, cables form the infrastructure of the wireless and constantly illuminated society we live in. Isolated, as fragments without a context, they seem absurdly mute, dysfunctional, like prehistoric relics. “Cable stumps are cross-sections of a vocabulary of interruptions. A cut-off form. Ending mid-sentence.” according to the artist herself.

James Capper, Single miller with broadcasting guard and broadcast drums, Powder coated steel, hydraulics, plaster, 2012 - 2017, Broadcast F (I), Broadcast F (II) , Both plaster on linen on marine ply, 2017, Courtesy of the artist and Hannah Barry Gallery

JAMES CAPPER

Born in 1987, London, United Kingdom

James Capper makes mobile sculptures to be used in action
on varied terrains and with a wide range of materials, applying them as sculptural tools. Engineering is at the backdrop of this practice, pushing him to constantly revisit what sculpture can be; his own arrangement of ergonomics, hydraulics and aesthetics allow the works to exist autonomously. In parallel, the sculptures are accompanied by drawings, documenting the process from conception to completion. SINGLE MILLER forms part of his Carving Division Power Tool Family, which has a rotational action that allows the broadcasting drum to cut and broadcast plaster within its installation environment. Different attachments facilitate different types of cutting and broadcasting.

Jordi Colomer, X-VILLE, Video, 23’, colour, sound, 2015, Courtesy of the artist

JORDI COLOMER

Born in 1962, Barcelona, Spain

Jordi Colomer introduces us to a city X, an imagined city where it is possible to rethink the way in which time and life are currently organised. X-VILLE is his first film essay, though his career has been always influenced by the presence of the urban question, the liberation of citizens and the idea of utopia. X-VILLE was produced with the collaboration of a group of students and the participation of the inhabitants of the city of Annecy. The production process transcends the logic of representation and has made it possible to build a real collective experience.

Jose Davila, Untitled (Black Universe), Smoked glass, concrete, ratchet strap, 2016, Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin

JOSE DAVILA

Bordin in 1974, Guadalajara, Mexico

Davila creates sculptures from glass, stones and gravity, assembling precariously balanced arrangements that are
informed by his training as an architect. His sense for balance
and proportion fuels his artistic practice, which unravels the methods deployed for obtaining modernist architectural principles, translating them into modernist spatial investigations.

Thea Djordjadze, As Saga Sa, Steel, wood, 2012, Untitled , Wood, lamp, 2012 Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers

THEA DJORDJADZE

Born in 1971, Tbilisi, Georgia

The artist’s sculptures are situated between form and anti-form, a combination of stable structures and fragile, gestural renderings typically exhibited together in a carefully choreographed setting. The installations, incomplete and fragmentary in character, oscillate between open spatial designs and dense performative gestures, emphasizing the contrasts between mental and actual interior spaces, between intimacy and public presence. As Saga Sa was previously presented at dOCUMENTA 13 in Kassel, and finds new shape within this exhibition to express the transiety of time, chance and disintegration.

Gabriel Kuri , 3 1/2, Stone blocks, parking disc , ()) , Stone blocks, parking disc cover, both 2015, Courtesy of the artist and Franco Noero Gallery Turin

GABRIEL KURI

Born in 1970, Mexico City, Mexico.

Gabriel Kuri creates visually appealing sculptures, installations and collages, working from repurposed natural, industrial, and mass-produced objects. Stones are an important feature in his works, referencing both to the construction-mania of urban development, while equally embodying references to architectural history, and the genius loci of certain sites. The constellation exhibited at CAB departs from a collection of non-descript but intruiging building blocks, from which the origin remains unknown. Interposed in this apparent modularity are a parking disc and a parking disc cover, hinting at time and transiety, and thereby juxtaposing human agency against the collective rythms of urban life.

Mountaincutters, SITUARE, High temperature stoneware, steel, cast glass, water, gypsum, calcination, textile, light, 2017

MOUNTAINCUTTERS

Mountaincutters is an artist collective active in France and Belgium

Mountaincutters intervene in Jean Prouvé’s Demountable House with an intimate and tactile arrangement of ceramics, steel structures and textiles. Drawing on the connection between human beings
and the environments they inhabit, the elements blur the lines between construction site material and human-like prothesis. A human presence is conveyed through the scale in which the elements are laid out, and the traces of remembrances that permeate the environment, enhancing the shelter’s domestic potentiality.

Driss Ouadahi, Graue Fassade, Bunte Fassade, Oil on canvas, 2006, Courtesy of the artist and collection Nadour

DRISS OUADAHI

Born in 1959, Casablanca, Morocco

From 2004 – 2006, Driss Ouadahi executed several small paintings offering details and close-ups of rhythmic facades, with vanishing points almost swirling in vertigo. He hereby translated the utilitarian and utopian aspiration of these architectural social housing projects into abstracted representation of density and entanglement, drawing parallels to the way we inhabit modernist space.

Oscar Tuazon, It Is Easy To Clean, wood, aluminium, glass, iron paint, isolation foam, 2016, Courtesy of the artist and Dépendance

OSCAR TUAZON

Born in 1975, Seattle, United States

Oscar Tuazon’s sculptural oeuvre is situated at the border of art, architecture and technology, focusing on the materiality and the physical agency of the works he creates. He is indebted to the Minimalist tradition of Donald Judd and Carl Andre, in his ordering and appropriation of space. However, the ambiguous pseudo-functionality of his works challenges our perceptive awareness, in this case confusing the objective of the window as a tool to see through, detaching outside from inside.

Philippe Van Wolputte, 5 Motions, monotype, 2017 Courtesy of the artist

PHILIPPE VAN WOLPUTTE

Born in 1985, Antwerpen, Belgium

5 sets of instructions link CAB’s exhibition space to its urban surroundings. Philippe Van Wolputte explored the area
 and proposes five gestures to experience the city from an alternative, playful and unexpected viewpoint. In an attempt to reclaim agency over our occupation of the city, the invitations include wanderings in both public and private space.

Lena Verijke, Twenty, Three, Triplex, Triplex wood, green wallpaper, 2017, Courtesy of the artist

LENA VERIJKE

Born in 1994, Antwerpen, Belgium

Twenty, Three, Triplex stacks 22 boards of triplex and one leftover piece of wallpaper. In this simple, accidental gesture which occured in her studio, Lena Verijke plays with the expected functionality of these constructing materials.

Christoph Weber, Bent Inversion, Concrete, 2012

CHRISTOPH WEBER

Born in 1974, Vienna, Austria.

Christoph Weber’s art finds its existense in its creation process, where he allows chance and detoriation to occur. By diverging from the rigid methodologies in which we generally submit construction materials to our specific -architectural- needs, Weber engages with the physical properties of his material in his experiments, which determine the eventual outcome. Bent Inversion lays bare this dual stance, incorporating both a smooth artificially manipulated, and a rough gravelled side.

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