Fienne Platteeuw

The Belgium artist Fienne Platteeuw has made a new sculpture for this exhibition. With her piece she wanted to make the public interact with her piece. Fienne made a hollow cube out of wax of 60cm. (I liked its tactile surface, somehow reminded me to Joseph Beuys’s). The cube was placed on a low stand with four wheels; under it, there was a movement sensor. By the side a strong lamp stood quietly with the light off.
At the opening night the public began arriving to the gallery. As soon as someone was in the surroundings of the piece, the sensor registered the movement and consequently the light turned on. The lamp will be on as long as the person(s) is standing in that very place.
The wax melted under the hit: the longer the interaction with the public, the more the “destruction” of the piece. She likes to say it that way. To me, I don’t see it as a destructive process, but as an intervention of the people in to the shaping of the sculpture. I find it interesting: the public could choose where to stay longer or shorter near the piece, but not where the lamp was standing, neither could be expected/contralloed the way that the wax would melt and later solidify.
By the end of the exhibition the cube had significantly changed its shape. And there was wax all over the floor.

Nayra

Tarek Ode

Tarek Ode is a very special photographer to me. We met many years ago through the lenses of his camera, yet at the time when the digital photography was at its infancy. He was making his living out of working for a model agency and I was starting with an unstable career as a model.

His photographic work is remarkably mysterious. He travels often and each visit to another hemisphere inspires him to create a new series. Landscapes or interiors are often his themes. He has also produced a series of portraits: “Ciudadanos”. One way or another, his images are always presented to us within a dream-like atmosphere. His images ask to be recognised as geography for themselves, as a proposal of the world for the world.

He doesn’t restrain his field of creation to the photography itself. In between other projects, he has also directed two short films. He filmed “La Spirale” in Paris, with which he won the price to the best photography in the Festival Ateneo en Corto -Spain- and got to be finalist in the Cinema Festival of Tapiales, in Argentina.

He has received many grants and has been published in various art magazines and catalogues. His work has been shown in places like Barcelona, Paris, Croatia, Belgium, Argentina and New
York.

"Escritos romanos"

He is currently living and working in Tenerife. If you like to know more about his work check out his website:

http://www.tarekode.com/

Patricia Delgado

With the graphic works Lego azul y Lego rojo, Spanish born artist Patricia Delgado introduce us in her poetic world. She studied in La Laguna’s University of Fine Arts in Tenerife and followed “Free art graphics” in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp (Belgium). She is currently living and working in Tenerife in the fields of painting, illustration and etching.

"Lego Azul" "Lego Rojo"

About her work I couldn’t say anymore that what is to see and to read at her blog. You should have a further look: it’s worth it!

http://patrisdelgado.blogspot.com/

Annelies Van Camp

Annelies Van Camp is a Belgium visual artist. She lives in Gent and has her studio at Nucleo's Leopolds Kazerne. She works with photography and installations. For Tangents she has created the slide-installation ‘5:32pm’. An impossible situation. She projects on the wall the reflection of the light that goes trough a window. But there is no window there to be found.

'5.32pm'

About her work:
Perception is the basic theme in my work. Through my work, I try to question our way of perception. Hereby, I shall manipulate and/or accentuate the original situations.



Themes/situations which I manipulate, concern the physical appearance of a certain space or even seemingly banal gestures; all things we don’t even notice anymore because of their banality, things we don’t actually ‘perceive’. Things we are supposed to know (a priori).

'Pavillion'

http://anneliesvancamp.blogspot.com

Nele Tas

Past Friday 03.10 Nele Tas came to do surveillance at Tangents. She hadn’t seen yet the expo and so we talk long about it. She has also organized the art exhibition Temporary Cities in Lokeren. Nele is now sharing her living time in between Berlin and Belgium. At the moment she’s busy with new exhibition projects in the German capital.




These two untitled paintings to see at the expo are an example of her second series of paintings about the contemporary condition of inevitable belonging to the masses:

“In our society, all former role models of a sovereign individuality have disappeared: the authentic artist, the unworldly philosopher, the anchorite, the dandy, the adorable screen goddess. Belonging to the masses is our fate. In the words of Sloterdijk, isolation has perished, what remains is co isolation”.
(…)

“This condition of co isolation has always been in the focus of my pictorial expression and imagination. I chose to explore the subtle balance between being an individual and not being one by operating with a strained perspective from above. This perspective, namely, confirms the mutual lack of commitment. It isolates the spectator from the scene of the painting. It puts him both in the position of a voyeur and that of an outsider. The most characteristic result of this way of visualizing people from above is that the human face is no longer visible”.
(…)

“The first series of paintings registrates the collective movements of people in the city.(…) In contrast to the anonymous masses, the second series of paintings portray individual persons with whom I am very close (…) I attempt to catch their expressivity by painting their typical hairline. Strangely enough, this parting of the hair, this small part of the visible scalp, is an intimate and vulnerable part of the body to which one as a person does not relate directly”.

Nele is also having a group exhibition now in Mechelen togheter with many other artists: EXHIBITION Cultuurcentrum Mechelen / De Garage Van 27-9 t/m 23-11

Ada Van Horelbeecke

Ada Van Hoorebeke was at Tangents last Sunday 28.09. She came with her sympathetic mother. Americo Pinanez welcomes them and spends with them a pleasant evening talking about art and the like. They very much liked our exhibition and encourage our initiative of bringing the Belgium-north European art(ists) and the Latin together.

Today another art work was sold. This time one of Americo Pinanez the sculptures.

Ada participated with the work Lost Nature.
(There are not visible on the picture, but in each top corner of the paintings a pink little radish was hanging. Along the days has passed the vegetables have been shrinking)


“Lost Nature”

Once the seeds, on the painting on the left, were real, little plants.
Now, you can hardly imagine … like a lost memory that slips away.


Ada Van Hoorebeke



At the moment Ada is living in Berlin and is busy with new exhibition projects. She is also one of the 20 finalist to the Rodenbach 2008 contest for professional artists.

Ada is also having a group exhibition now in Mechelen with many other artists: EXHIBITION Cultuurcentrum Mechelen / De Garage Van 27-9 t/m 23-11

Dacil grandos and Dacil Manrique's Economia domestica

The video "Economia domestica" from Dacil Granados and Dacil Manrique was inspired by the flemish painting " El Cambista y su mujer". From this painting exist different versions: one in the Prado museum, in Madrid (with Dacil in the image below), made by Quentin Massys in 1514 and one inthe Louvre in Paris, made by Marinus van Reymerswaele in 1539.

This painting is the most known image to illustrate the economic activity of that time. We can see a men counting coins on the left and a woman at his right looking at his movements, both sitting behind a table. They are inside a house representative of the medium-high classes of the XVI century in Flanders.

With their video work Dacil Granados and Dacil Manrique wanted to talk about the actual situation of the artist. In their video we can see a modern interior. Behind a table a couple is sitting, to the right the woman, to the left the man. In the middle there is a mirror, in the flemish style, in which we can see the reflection of the filming camera. The man is counting money and writing down notes on a little note book; the woman is looking bored; she stares at a magazine and from time to time, gazes at his activity.

This work is a humble comment about the non stopping need of being aware of the little money we have, aware of the last penny we can get. How could us, artists, use our little incomes in the most effective way to be able to keep on creating?

Nayra MR

For more pictures of their visit to Gante:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8030789@N06/sets/72157607473821509/

Spanish Artists

Roberto Miranda, Julio, Dacil Granados y Nayra

Roberto came all the way from Berlin, Dacil granados y Julio, desde Madrid y Tenerife.

Gracias!

(los veremos de nuevo por aqui)

Roberto Miranda

Confirmed participant visual artists

Américo Piñanez (py)
Dácil Granados & Dácil Manrique (es)
Annelies Van Camp (be)
Bram deryckere (be)
Cristina Guitián (es)
Arno Lantmeeters (be)
Mira Heijia (fin)
Patricia Delgado (es)
Tom De Visscher (be)
William Paats (py)
Roberto Torres (es)
Tarek Ode (es)
Guy Baele (be)
Nele Tas (be)
Fienne Platteeuw (be)
Bert Vanzieleghem‎ (be)
Bart Lescreve (be)
Ruben Van de Velde (be) & Christophe Lemmens (be)
Eneide Boneu (py)
Marlies Davans (be)
Nele Tas (be)
Ada Van Hoorebeke (be)
Karen Vermeren (be)
Nayra Martín Reyes (es)