Urbanautica

REVIEW ON ARTWALL 2014

by Dieter Debruyne

«The host and founding-father of this art-venue, Peter Waterschoot, used to invite fellow artists to his renovated home, where he offered them space on bare walls to show their works.»

The host and founding-father of this art-venue, Peter Waterschoot, used to invite fellow artists to his renovated home, where he offered them space on bare walls to show their works. Meanwhile, after several editions, ARTWALL started to boom, the house got too small, ARTWALL went extra-muros and the venue has become a well-known event.

© Sabine Oosterlynck and Steve Reynders

For this edition, Peter invites 9 fellow photographers, to reflect on their oeuvre, showing us 5 significant pieces, so-called ‘Cornerstones’. Thus the matrix for this edition, a point of (no) return. A ricochet.

He wrote the following for Artwall 9:

«Images flash us by at the speed of light. Skim vs. Scan. What a marvelous inspiration this is! Fast forward on hitting the reverse button, for the occasion. Let’s reflect on slowing down a bit. But not too much. Allow ourselves a rear view mirror approach, in order to look ahead».

The question for retrospection was for some photographers a difficult exercise, eg, Tine Guns constantly re-uses images in different contexts. Our (collective) memory and history are a main source of inspiration for her. She works with archives, both, personal and collective. Her images are in constant motion, the only ones that are locked are the ones she made books with. «Photobooks need to be read like a film». So I unlocked a photo from each photobook and made a new sequence/story with it. «My cornerstone is a liquid stone».

© Tine Guns

Stéphanie Yoshiwara found a solution in selecting 5 pictures as blueprint of her favorite hobbies: portraits, erotica, abstraction, identity.

© Stephanie Yoshiwara

She chooses to work with appropriated images. This is a result of a feeling that there are enough images around to start working with.

© Stephanie Yoshiwara

The editing or reworking of material is something Alexander Saenen does too. But his starting point is personal and the used material as well. Still he tries to bring his personal story in a universal language. He erases his own view. He says: «I try to find very different ways to go about personal images which makes it possible to transform my own material».

© Alexander Saenen

© Dries Segers

Standard formats, standard colors, standard shapes, standard weights… Moments of wonderment on the everyday and an absolute love for materials; wood, foam, celluloid. The pictures of Dries Segers counterbalance the works of Alexander Saenen. However, they both have a rather articulated love for objects, and Dries takes us into a world of standardized materials. The poetic functionalist Jan De Cock isn’t that far off. Dries fell in love with the simplicity of textures. This ‘normalness’, this non logic-beauty. He is tuned into singularities in time which most strictly-logical humans pass by without noticing. Within photography, he has the mentality of a painter. He uses the world in a different manner to make abstractions of shape, color and content, hence ‘constructing’ his images. This photography isn’t just a registration of anecdotes or memories, this photography is becoming a new way of sculpting.

© Dries Segers

“Gefühl ist alles, Name ist nur Schall und Rauch…” (Goethe, Faust)

© Armand Quetsch

The vanity theme is a predominant subject of the 'ephemera’ series from Armand Quetsch. His photography is in stark contrast with some of the others I already mentioned. Like the quote above, we see eg a portrait of his granduncle, moments after he died. Or a picture from a Nerium oleander (lorier rose), a very beautiful, but toxic, plant.

© Michel Vaerewijck

In this post-Pop era Michel Vaerewijck and Thomas Vandenberghe underline the importance to be ‘sui generis’ in order to bring the ‘objet d’art’ to life. Their 1/1 editions. Reproduction is ultimately limited.

In their diaristic approach everything is ‘nür Gefühl’.
Michel tells me he’s in constant battle with the anecdotic. His work is a tool for discovering life and the quest for the essence of (his) life. Themes like vulnerability and limitation also repeatedly occur in the work of Thomas.

© Thomas Vandenberghe

Peter Waterschoot shows ‘stand alone pieces’, images that aesthetically satisfy and articulate a desire to create their own scenery. The selection that keeps its relevance throughout time. Not so long ago Peter Waterschoot was still a storyteller, but here we see him, for the first time, showing his pictures, in a decontextualized setting. Nevertheless Peter sees each picture once again as a possible route to different territory.

© Peter Waterschoot

Also Daniel Piaggio Strandlund and Nathalie Nijs prefer to see their work presented independent and non-combined. There is no sequential story. Nathalie wants an open ending, sobriety and a balance between touching the ‘essence’ and the ‘image’. The space within the image and within the ‘meaning’ of the image. A stillness she cherishes. «Be like a sponge, absorb everything, then leave it to ripen, inside yourself, literally on your insides, build up this tension, and finally throw it all up.»

«I am already to far from it; the only thing I can say is that in neither case was there anything which ordinarily be called an event» (Jean-Paul Sartre, La nausée)

By bringing these images into the world they’re no longer mine, they transcend the personal story where they originate from, they become part of a bigger story.

© Nathalie Nijs

Instead of working in photo series or photo books, Daniel examines wall photography and projection as a dimensional object in space. The same thing Nathalie predominantly does. Nathalie shares her images on the internet, but the magic happens when the images ‘go offline’, which they seldom do, she is duly hesitative on bridging her work from the online to the real world.