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Past Shows

Jean-Alain Corre

Opening Thursday 15 January 2015, 6-9pm
16 January 2015 – 11 March 2015
Rectangle, Brussels

JEAN-ALAIN CORRE, Ophiopocore dorcelopsis, 2015
JEAN-ALAIN CORRE, Ophiopocore dorcelopsis, 2015

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Past Shows

Nicolas Bourthoumieux

Opening Saturday 15 November 2014, 6-9pm
16 November 2014 – January 2015
Rectangle, Brussels

www.nicolasbourthoumieux.com

NICOLAS BOURTHOUMIEUX, Division, 2014
NICOLAS BOURTHOUMIEUX, Division, 2014

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Past Shows

Nicholas Knight

Opening Wednesday 10 September 2014, 6-9pm
11 September – 10 November 2014
Rectangle, Brussels

www.nicholasknight.net

NICHOLAS KNIGHT, Taking (Taking Pictures) Pictures: Les Amants, 2014
NICHOLAS KNIGHT, Taking (Taking Pictures) Pictures: Les Amants, 2014

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Past Shows

Vincent Olinet

Vincent Olinet

Je ne peux pas faire de miracles

15 June – July 2014
at Rectangle, Brussels
Courtesy Los Contemporaneos

Vincent Olinet
Born 1981 in France.
Lives and works in Paris.

www.vincentolinet.com

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Past Shows

Filip Van Dingenen

Filip Van Dingenen – Mas Presente!
Filip Van Dingenen – Mas Presente!

Filip Van Dingenen

Mas Presente!

at Rectangle, Brussels
Filip Van Dingenen – Mas Presente!
Filip Van Dingenen – Mas Presente!
Filip Van Dingenen – Mas Presente!
Filip Van Dingenen – Mas Presente!
FILIP VAN DINGENEN, documentation OSCAR DECLERCK, BEELDHOUWER/SCULPTEUR Catalogue Galerie Georges Giroux (1932), inktjet print
FILIP VAN DINGENEN, Pre-lliminary sketches for 7 bas reliefs Oscar de Clerck, rizo/inktjet print

INTERVIEW

The image chosen for the billboard is one of a series of seven, composing Filip Van Dingenen’s proposal for Rectangle: an analytical exploration of the bas-reliefs integrated in the facade of the stadium of Royal Union Saint-Gilles (Josef Marien Stadium) by the Belgium sculptor Oscar de Clerck (1892 – 1968). The project investigates the history of the depiction of football clubs, from the teams’ black & white photography to full colour digital photography.

Using or copying a methodology / strategy similar to a choreographers rehearsals in the dance studio, this exploration focuses on position, composition and speculating on the movement of the sportsmen.

What is the meaning of the title: MAS PRESENTE! It’s Spanish right? Why?

Yes it is, for me it is the language of drama.
It is the scream of a coach. Thinking of will, perseverance and discipline. But at the same time I see an image of the impotence of a coach standing in the rain along the pitch while his team fails.

You live very close to the stadium of St Gilles, and to Rectangle too. There is with the choice of this subject something of a ‘local’ investigation, but drifts to more general and historical concerns. This drift seems to feature in your work in general.
Can you talk about that?

Le Cercle d’histoire or the Heemkundige Kring has often a musty reputation. It is an organisation you can find everywhere in the world, mostly managed by amateurs passionated by local history. Wherever I go to develop a project (the Burren -Ireland, Banff – Rocky Mountains, Argentinian pampas or a green area in Genk) it seems I always ended up talking or collaborating with this organisations like this. There is an interesting shift dealing with local knowledge.

Sport is one of your fields of interest. For example, with Wiels Memory Game (2009), you created a memory game gathering the members of the Wiel’s cycle team in the 50’s and the artists that have later exposed at Wiels Art Center. What interests you so much about sport?
Sport is one of the main fields of interest of society, I’m just an observer of society. But I think sport and art work well together!

In this project, you created seven images referring each to one of the seven Oscar De Clerck’s bas-reliefs of the façade of the stadium. Why did you choose this one in particular to be printed and (dis)placed on the Rectangle’s billboard? What does this displacement mean to you?
It is a preliminary study of an analytical exploration of the bas-reliefs of the art deco façade of the stadium of USG. The building is a protected monument by Monuments & Sites. The tragedy is that all references and studies disappeared. Probably the ex-wife of the sculptor Oscar the Clerck threw away all the preparatory material. So we can only guess if the sculptor based his work on images of team players of USG or on pictures from the sportsmen or if he had models in his studio. Who were the models?
There are a lot of hybrid influences, from greek stylistic athletics / Belgian expressionistic modernism, and influences concerning artistic encounters in his youth in Ostend.

The dots of acid colors you placed upon the b & w photograph were roughly made using photoshop. They seem a little awkward. You said it was on purpose. What is the significance of those colored ‘marks’? Where do they come from?

It is a technique / methodology used in a dancers studio to mark specific points to remember and rehearse a choreography and at the same time it is based on Mary Schäffer Warren’s hand painted photographs of fauna and flora.

The six other images printed in A3 are visible in the exhibition room at Rectangle.
They are inkjet prints on paper upon which you printed colours with riso technology.
Here there is a confrontation of image practices and printing technologies. Can you talk about that?

My idea was to silkscreen the banner, which could give the billboard another dimension with the printed image. Also it could be interested to have a unique silkscreened piece on the billboard. But Rectangle’s restrictions meant no silkscreen could be put on the banner. As an artist you always have to deal with restrictions.
Inside, the prints are preliminary sketches based on a digital collage technique. I added diagrams and strategies on it, (i.e. from bone joints, speculating on the directions the football could turn, the focus in the mental space of a football player, etc…).

In your work, you draw lines, trace various ways of reading and understanding; I think you try to connect different places, different times, and different fields, cultures or levels of culture. Am I right?

There is indeed a multiple level of time and space. But that’s how I see the world, how it is.

documentation OSCAR DECLERCK, BEELDHOUWER/SCULPTEUR extract of ECHO (1962), 04’28”

Filip Van Dingenen
Born 1975 in Belgium. Lives and works in Brussels.

www.fantaman.net

Categories
Past Shows

Magali Lefebvre

Opening Friday 7 February 2014, 6-9pm
8 February – 24 March 2014

www.magalilefebvre.com

 MAGALI LEFEBVRE , Moduli, pictures, 2014
MAGALI LEFEBVRE , Moduli, pictures, 2014

Categories
Past Shows

Benoit Plateus

Benoit Plateus, Bookworm, 2013
Benoit Plateus, Bookworm, 2013

Benoit Plateus

A mange B

13 December 2013 – February 2014
at Rectangle, Brussels
Benoit Plateus, A mange B, 2013, Rectangle, Brussels

Prédire l’avenir des noms n’est pas pour toujours. Nous sommes de l’actualité, percée à jouir de tous cotés. Une différence et un diffèrent se jettent dans la tête pour mieux imprimer la bouche. Ils nous placent dans la perspective comme on mange dans une cuisine : un passant le devant de l’autre par ordre et propreté. L’Europe est un grand meuble. Elle revient du centre et des salopards de minimalistes.

Tout est tenu par la laisse. La loi voyage plus vite que la lumière et sont dans ses bagages confortablement étouffés au chaud.
Bienvenue dans la maison appelée réalité. La perspective est un organe dans la fonction. Et vaniteux en plus. Chaque objet glisse sur la route de l’univers, pour le bon plaisir de rincer les cieux, (Dieu parle de haut en bas et de gauche a droite) et de laver son nom. Avant la glace et les pierres tombales le vivant vivifiant était presque partout écouté et peut-être même lu par le réel. Comme ça:

«je suis de face à face, et quand j’ouvre mon trou dans ta tête ce n’est jamais oublié la partie remise, la beauté avant le tout pour le tout! Je cache mes sentiments sous la peau et c’est bien ou pas. C’est un accord de sophistication et d’experts de la nation, du roi et de la jungle. Mains après demain ils touchent ton nerf et puis ils touchent à tout.» 14.000 desseins se rapprochent. Tous foutent le camp : tu leur donnes un doigt ils prennent tes clés de lecture.

Ensuite tu ouvres sa poche où est déplié un grand papier noir qui dit :

A mange B

BB mange maman

les grosses bêtes mangent les petites

la mer mange les poissons

ma chaussette mange mon pied

le building mange les gens

le prof mange les élèves

les ongles mangent les doigts

les dents mangent la bouche

Plusieurs des lettres et mots sont arrachés à la tire d’un livre à l’autre, dans la bouche parfois. Ou peut-être pas.

Benoit Plateus, Rush, 2013, Rectangle, Brussels
Benoit Plateus, Rush, 2013, Rectangle, Brussels

Benoit Platéus
Born 1972 in Liège, Belgium.
Lives and works in Brussels.

www.benoitplateus.be

Categories
Past Shows

Pablo Helguera

PABLO HELGUERA, Société Civile pour l’Enterrement de Pensées Mortes, Rectangle, Brussels
PABLO HELGUERA, Société Civile pour l’Enterrement de Pensées Mortes, Rectangle, Brussels

Pablo Helguera

Société Civile pour l’Enterrement de Pensées Mortes

20 October – 11 December 2013
at Rectangle, Brussels
Pablo Helguera, Exhibition view SCPLEPM, 2013

PRESS RELEASE

Société Civile pour l’enterrement de pensées mortes is Pablo Helguera’s first solo exhibition in Belgium. Presented at Rectangle, Brussels, this project pays homage to the history of Belgian civil societies of free thought. Period preceding the first World (1854-1914) war. On the eve of the First World War, there were no fewer than 250 rationalist societies scattered throughout the country, including nearly 25,000 members.

The Belgian rationalists, or freethinkers, exerted a considerable influence on left-leaning parties (liberals and socialists) during the first decades of the XXth Century. Freethinkers essentially campaigned on behalf of the autonomy of human consciousness and toward a secularization of the state and of civil society, including schools and hospitals. Freethinkers sometimes went so far as to replace the rituals of the Church, creating a new secular “sacred”. This spirit was implemented most practically in their civil funerals, which promoted incineration and offered a resting place for individuals outside of organized religion.

The project consisted in the creation of a social network inspired in the ideas and rituals of free thinkers, but instead focusing on burying and warding the vestiges of thought of ideologies, scientific theories and philosophies  that could be deemed superseded, questionable or failed.  A special crypt contained a number of urns guarding the ashes of these ideas and were  only accessible to those who accept to join the society, taking responsibility to become collective guardians of the ashes of one of the dead ideas. The project included a publication inspired on the XIXth century Belgian rationalist newspaper La Libre Pensée, which was available only on printed form and for the exclusive use of those who agreed to join the society.

 


COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE

Société Civile pour l’enterrement de pensées mortes est la première exposition personnelle de Pablo Helguera en Belgique. Présenté à Rectangle, Bruxelles, ce projet rend hommage à l’histoire des sociétés de libre pensée en Belgique sur la période précédant la première guerre mondiale (1854-1914). A l’aube de la guerre, on pouvait recenser près de 250 sociétés rationalistes disséminées dans tout le pays, comptant environ 25 000 membres.

Les Libres-penseurs belges ont exercé une influence considérable sur les partis progressistes (libéraux et socialistes), ont participé à la résistance et apporté un soutien à la population durant la première guerre mondiale. Ils ont essentiellement fait campagne en faveur de l’autonomie de la conscience humaine, vers une sécularisation de l’Etat et de la société civile, y compris la laïcisation des écoles et des hôpitaux. Les Libres-penseurs sont allés jusqu’à remplacer les rituels de l’Église par de nouvelles pratiques laïques “sacrées”, cet esprit se retrouve plus pratiquement dans la « fête de la jeunesse », dans les funérailles civiles par l’incinération, et offre ainsi une alternative aux personnes non croyantes.

"Here remains the ashes of a particular herb"

Pablo Helguera - Portrait

Pablo Helguera
Born 1971 in Mexico. Lives and works in New York.

pablohelguera.net