PRESS RELEASE
ANTWERP SCULPTURE SHOW Open Air
11 – 14 September 2008
Gedempte Zuiderdokken
(Square between Vlaamsekaai and Waalsekaai)
Exhibition Design by Luc Deleu & T.O.P office
Initiave by Antwerp Art Galleries, Middelheim Museum & Muhka
Dagmar De Pooter Gallery Antwerp, presents Ellen Augustynen ‘Schildersverdriet’
Ellen Augustynen works with video, photography and installations, always in the form of ready-mades, drawn from reality. The starting point of Ellen Augustynen’s work is rather nihilistic, the result being that she doesn’t find satisfaction in form, technique or content. Several matters are at issue here: one’s own insignificance, the absurd, repugnance to an artistic consensus and a political correctness, and, at the same time, one’s self-awareness. Everything becomes trivial in this view, becomes ridiculous and at the same time vivacious. With insolent statements exploring the limits of the presentable, she confronts herself and the public with the duality of banality and meaning, playing the artist.
’Schildersverdriet’
Invitation for a speech
An installation on the cobble-stones at the south docks, with still more cobble-stones set in two piles, upon which are steps and a ladder.
With many thanks to Geert Verbeke, (Verbeke Foundation Kemzeke, Stekene)
The
annual Whitsun fair, tennis championships, Cirque du Soleil, parked cars,
the musical 0110 event in protest at the political climate in Antwerp, which
is shifting to the right, ice sculptures, an exclusive trade fair of luxury
articles and even more numerous circuses of other origins: the filled-in
southern docks between the Vlaamsekaai and the Waalsekaai have in the past
played host to a wide variety of events. But only on one occasion has the
square been used for contemporary art, in the summer of 2002 when Villanella
and MuHKA installed the ‘drive-in wheel’, a huge Ferris wheel for cars
designed by the Dutch artist John Körmeling.
The South, with the filled-in southern docks at its heart, has though been
surrounded by the visual arts for many years now: historical works in the
Royal Museum of Fine Art, contemporary art in the galleries and the MuHKA
and FotoMuseum. And yet it was not until 2008 that an idea that had been in
circulation for a long time – literally and figuratively filling the
square with contemporary art – could be put into action. This was an idea
which, with hindsight, turned out to be so obvious that several actors had
had it in mind for several years.
In the end it was the galleries that took the actual initiative and put
together a proposal for a sculpture exhibition. It seemed to them that, as a
form of artistic expression, sculpture had for too long been treated harshly
by the institutions; it was high time attention was paid exclusively to this
medium. They went in search of partners ‘in crime’. They found them in
the first place in the
Luc Deleu and his TOP design firm have been entrusted with the task of
giving shape to the event: the Waalsekaai and the Vlaamsekaai will be linked
by a blue carpet that cuts across the square: on one side of the carpet will
be the exhibition infrastructure, two office containers one on top of the
other and a tent for the opening, and on the other side the works of art. A
daring arrangement based on an open view of sculpture and the city.
The fact that the exhibition will only last four days, and is therefore
quite transient, has not prevented the artists from displaying great
commitment. The international appeal and the dedication of the various
partners involved also give the event a potential future.
An extensively documented publication on the Antwerp Sculpture Show will be
published afterwards.