Two exhibitions
dal 25/4/2007 al 8/6/2007
Segnalato da
25/4/2007
Two exhibitions
Dagmar De Pooter Gallery, Antwerp
Jacobs' work emphasizes - and is rooted in - the physical world, but never tries to imitate reality. His subject-matter is nature and these pictures are portraits of plants. Gabriela Maciel presents several sculpted objects produced by the constant action upon construction site fences.
Frie J. Jacobs - Prelude
Frie J. Jacobs makes photographs with an embodied gaze that has become corporeal
through the eye. Instead of letting his mind go out throughthe eyes to wander
around the objects, he allows the objects to pass into him. It is the intensity of
alterity, of the object's physicality and of itsaffect, which like a ripple
through the ether reaches the artist's body that is itself part of the flesh of
the world. This intensive force legitimises the artist's existence. It is not the
artist who gives birth to objects or things, but things that give birth to
artists. Raw impressions of objects are first captured and held hostage; and then,
like important memories, they are preserved as images. Prelude consists of nine
unique photographs, which are images the artist has decided to preserve. They are
the result of an investigation into one of the five themes of his project Fatum.
Jacobs' work emphasizes -and is rooted in- the physical world, but never tries to
imitate reality. His subject-matter is nature and these pictures are portraits of
plants. Although they are photographs, they posses the quality and texture of
paintings; paintings painted with the gaze and with light. Sensitive to light's
double function of showing and hiding, the objects are shrouded by a blur.
Suggestively, they almost pierce the skin of this cocoon-like veil that covers them.
They are revealed to the viewer in their unconcealedness. Pre-consciously and
pre-reflectively they deal us an ontological blow that is all the stronger because
they constitute the stuff of which we are made. Looking at something means keeping
it at a distance; it is our body, our vision, which holds things in a circle around
us. Addressing the viewer as an organic being, these works bridge this gap, a gap
that has estranged us from the natural world. It is in this way, before these works,
that we can begin to make sense of the dictum to see is to feel.
.............................
Gabriela Maciel - Presence
Gabriela Maciel (Brazil ° 1977) Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro.
With a Fine Arts Degree from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
(London), she began studying art in 1995 at the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque
Lage (RJ), where she took courses in drawing, painting, sculpture, installations and
art history. In 2001, the artist participated in workshops such as Procedência e
Propriedade, with Charles Watson, and Diálogos, with Ernesto Neto. In 2004, she
participated in the Area 10 International Workshop (London) and in 2006, at the EAV
do Parque Lage (RJ) with a study group headed by Iole de Freitas. Gabriela has been
exhibiting since 2000, in Brazil and overseas, with one-woman shows including:
Hanging Blue (Purple Institute, Paris), Proteção (Mínima Galeria, RJ) and Purifying
Process (Soso Gallery, Japan). Her work also has been in group shows, including:
London Biennale (England), Dot Mov (Japan), O que nos cerca (Dagmar De Pooter
Gallery, Belgium), Scope NY (USA), FotoRio, Arquivo Geral (Centro de Artes Helio
Oiticica, RJ), Riocenacontemporanea, Paradoxos Brasil - Itaú Rumos 2006 (São Paulo
and RJ - Brazil), Arte e Diversidade (Centro Cultural do Banco do Brasil - CCBB RJ).
Currently, the artist is working with concepts of time, space and transformation;
with a reference to the theory of knots and kinesthesia (association), through open
multimedia processes.
Gabriela Maciel presents several sculpted objects produced by the constant action
upon construction site fences. Compressing the extensive synthetic mesh and
transforming it into sculptures and installations, Gabriela engenders beings endowed
with essence. In her process, strongly guided by electronic music, the tones take on
body and reverberate like a driving force of the work. The artist, in a nearly
alchemistic action of transmutation of materials, liberates the fabric from its
identity through a corporal collision, making them beings desirous of a dialogue
with the space that shelters them. It is the beginning of an adventure where the
borders between drawing, sculpture, video, photography and performance are
abolished. A sensitive body, present and active. Part of the artist's process is to
provide the spectator with new visual, tactile and auditive perceptions.
In her work, digital videos are used as third-tier information, consisting of
memories of prior processes of variable time or oscillating movements.
( Artist own website http://www.gabrielamaciel.net)
Vernissage: 26 April 2007 6-8pm
Dagmar De Pooter Gallery
Pourbusstraat 14 - Antwerp
Free admission