Hans Op de Beeck
dal 6/12/2013 al 29/3/2014
Segnalato da
6/12/2013
Hans Op de Beeck
Arnhem Museum of Modern Art MMKA, Arnhem
Metropolitan scenes. In 3 films the artist shows how we fail to bring things under control, how inadequate are our attempts to shape the world and therefore how we often find ourselves stranded in new, desolate and impersonal no-man's lands.
From 7 December 2013 through 30 March 2014 the Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem (which will become the Arnhem Museum on 1 January) will present Metropolitan scenes, an exhibition of works by the multi-dimensional artist Hans Op de Beeck. With his room-sized video installations Op de Beeck reflects on the tragicomic absurdity and melancholy inherent in modern human existence.
What do we all do to create an identity for ourselves and make ourselves comfortable with it? How do we maintain our place in a world that becomes ever more difficult to understand and in which people seem exchangeable?
In three films Hans Op de Beeck (Turnhout, 1969) shows how we fail to bring things under control, how inadequate are our attempts to shape the world and therefore how we often find ourselves stranded in new, desolate and impersonal no-man’s lands. The films look at our surroundings as stage sets (Staging Silence 2, 2013), at our growing dependence on technology (Extensions, 2009) and at the problematic relationship between the individual in all his or her vulnerability and the great masses that carry us or crush us (Dance, 2013).
The film Dance is having its international première in the Arnhem Museum.
Metropolitan scenes can be considered a contemporary pendant to the exhibition The Melancholy Metropolis. Cityscapes between magic and realism 1925-1950, which is on view in the museum through 23 February 2014. Together these exhibitions form a diptych in which the melancholy aspects of modern urban life find poetic expression.
The difficult and tragicomic relationship between humans and time, space and each other as a result of globalization and developments in media, automation and technology is an important theme in the work of Hans Op de Beeck, who lives and works in Brussels. He uses various media to portray this theme, ranging from drawings and watercolours to photography, texts, videos, sculptures and large, room-filling installations. His work has been exhibited in institutions, art houses and events such as various biënnales in Europe, Asia, the United States and Latin America. It is represented in many international museum collections. In 2012 the MMKA acquired the sculptural still-life Vanitas (2), with support from BankGiroLoterij.
Op de Beeck studied at the Hogeschool Sint Lukas in Brussels and the National Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Antwerp. For two years he was a participant at the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. He has received many prizes and was ‘Artist in residence’ in the MoMA PS1 Studio Program in New Yorkin 2002-3.
Image: Dance, 2013. Video still
Press contact
Linda Schregardus, PR & Publiciteit t +31(0)26 3775347 e linda.schregardus@museumarnhem.nl
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