Avant la
lettre
OPENING: 29 October 2022, 18h
Open 30
October, 1, 4, 5, 6 November 2022, 13h - 18h
From press release: Written Word and Image: these
are two fundamental components of the known history of art. Both possess
different powers, connotations, impediments, advantages, and have different
ways of establishing meaning. Whenever they are brought together in a work of
art, tension is inevitable, and throughout various cultures their relationship
has taken on surprising shapes.
For our newest exhibition, Avant la lettre, we will show the work of 19 artists who incorporate (hand)writing / type / text into their practice, and who explore the interaction between the written word and visual art.
The Image came first, without a
doubt. Our ancestors left paintings on cave walls, carved animal bone into
effigies, thousands of years before the invention of the first writing systems.
But writing got the upper hand, myths and holy Scripture came to determine how
human beings related to their surroundings and to each other. We explored the
world and aimed to capture all of creation in taxonomies, botanical treatises,
laws of physics. Only the supposed truth was ever written down.
In the Modern age however, the
power balance started to shift. The written word no longer maintained its
precedence over other modes of representation, and the author (who was of
course white and male) was no longer accepted as the all-determining
voice, whether in academia, film or journalism. Now, under the aegis of new
media like television and the internet, the Image appears to have emancipated
itself, and has gained an unprecedented ubiquity in all parts of the cultural
landscape.
None of us have been taught as
children how to interpret images, but reading and writing on the other hand are
acquired skills. Does this mean that looking at a painting requires more
spontaneity? Is reading more challenging? Can written words offer more meaning
than images? We are curious what associations or prejudices contemporary
artists have about these two extraordinary human devices. What are their
respective powers and shortcomings? And what processes are set in motion when
the two are combined into one single piece of art?
With works by Algolit, Andrey
Rylov and Maxim Mezentsev, Ash Bowland, Christina Mitrentse, Christine van
Poucke, Daniel Arthuus, Daniëlle Raspé, Éanna Mac Cana, Gabriel René Franjou,
Hyunbok Lee, Jing Wang, Laurence Petrone, Laurent Fiorentino, Leda Woloshyn,
Maarten Inghels, Marija Rinkevičiūtė, Martina Stella, Oliver Doe & Teresa
Weißert.
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