PRESS RELEASE

                       COMMON HOURS: CURRENT

Opening Thursday 3 december 2009, 6 – 9 pm
Performance: The Fluidium by Ludo Mich at 08:30 pm
Open 4 December 2009 - 17 january 2010

Ludo Mich (Born 1945 Antwerp, Belgium)
The Fluidium - In this performance Ludo Mich is interested in visually capturing the invisible energy waves between an artwork and its audience, The Fluidium being the moment in which somebody is unexplainably touched by what he sees. In 1976, while preparing The Perfect Performance for the Extra-Terrestrial exhibition in the ICC, James Lee Byars saw a halo around Mich´s head and manically tried to capture this is in a series of 20 polaroids, ultimately failing. In parapsychology they call this energy fields or astral bodies and the saints were always symbolically depicted with halos by religions. Mich already tried to visualize the 11th or M-Dimension in previous performances, The Fluidium can be considered another experiment in a similar direction.

Pepa Ivanova (Born 1984 Bulgaria)
Transitions between spaces create other dimension, kind of illusion of reality. I’m tying to mark this process, to connect inner and outer space in one work with maximum simplicity. The space manipulation transform of minimum interference, which depending of the situation and light can be almost invisible Most of my works are related by one or another way to different lights and the possibilities they give. How the environment can be completely changed without any rude interference and in specific moment when light, color, people or act get changed the all idea for the place is transformed. I like the idea of event and even but my objective works are more in addition to the space they are shown and not much self-dependent. Text by Pepa Ivanova, December 2009

Tonio de Roover (Born 1973 Bergen op Zoom, The Netherlands, Nationality Belgium)
 Wants to explore the connection between matter and its social status.Through objects, installations, photos and compilations, Tonio de Roover creates an abstract image of contemporary landscape. These works balance on the verge of design, sculpture and painting.The materials and the shapes of which the observer experiences the imaginary, visual and expressive force evoke inevitable links to themes of landscape and community. The different layers of matter, colour and memories blend together. Each layer has an origin, a meaning. The structure, the density and the representation of colour build a unity, illustrating how de Roover sees the world.

Bie Michels (Born 1960 Kimwenza, Congo, Nationality Belgium)
The recent work of Bie Michels is about the power and beauty of writing little notes or letters. About the patient obsession of writing them: to attempt to resist desperation, the passing by of time, our insignificance and self-image, appearances and memories, the grief about a lost life or a lost love. Her work is about a particular and trivial story which nevertheless encompasses the universal story of humanity. She probes the outer limits of intimacy in this particular story, beyond which the universal story shared by all human beings begins. (Fragment text). "She must by then have become terrified of her own pointlessness." (Hugo Camps, De Morgen, 3 February 2009)

Michael Laird (Born 1963 New York, USA)
 Painting is probably the most post-modern medium. Because of its historical background and its low-tech qualities, it appeals to artists who are critical of contemporary mass communication and other forms of cyber-hysteria. Painting is slow, tactile and its results are physical objects that can be considered as obstacles. Perception and interpretation cannot be separated from the physical, painted thing. Michael Laird can be considered as a post-modern painter pur sang. Educated in the traditional skills of drawing and painting, but being as much a reader and a thinker, he tries to connect conceptual research with a painterly approach. In the nineties, his paintings showed constructivist décors with isolated motifs floating above them. The fragments of objects and people, taken from popular imagery such as comic books, clashed with the high-modernist colourfield backgrounds. One particular series of paintings, titled Project for the Psychedelic Transformation of the United States Government (PFTPTOTUSG), referred to an artist’s conspiracy of overthrowing the American government. At the turn of the millennium, Laird decided to translate his fundamental doubts and criticisms about the American Dream into a more direct and time-based strategy, creating several performance- and video works. (Fragment text) Johan Pas, January 2006

Franky Michielsen (Born 1965, Antwerp, Belgium)
Encyclopédie des scènes biologiques.To create the Encyclopédie des scènes biologiques Franky Michielsen dismantled an eight-volume biological encyclopedia from the sixties and converted it into a new series of works that have a strong tie with the original books. He took the title from the encyclopedic series Encyclopédie des sciences biologiques: it is an allusion to the conversion and reinterpretation of a scientific to a more artistic content.By recycling the ‘lost’ images and by combining them with painted images he takes away their illustrative character. He frees them from their original meaning, function and character and gives them a new raison d’être. Between the illustrations from the encyclopedia, the painted images and the textual parts a dialogue emerges, creating a new reality. A reality consisting of recognizable elements in unpredictable coherence. The illustrative, scientific or atrocious overtone of some works is dismantled or reinforced. In the connections of meaning that arise, we discover themes that touch the artist, such as genetic engineering, animal testing, transplantation, modification, … They are visualizations in which he looks for elements from his past, present and future. In that sense, they can have the air of analytical diary notes.