A Minor State of Flux

Arti and Amicitiae, Amsterdam (NL)

Installation view

Q
What inspired your preoccupation with the materiality of photography in the new work you are presenting at Unseen?

A
My work often begins with an observation or a discovery I make in my studio, which I will then try to recreate. My ideas are usually to do with testing the material boundaries of photography and text. The work I am showing ... began when I was walking down the street on a rainy day and observed the disintegration of posters and cardboard after bikes and cars had driven over them. By the end of the day they formed what I refer to as ‘comets’ that spread out on the streets. The posters had previously carried information but throughout the day they were completely reduced to mere material. I am interested in ways that information is physically interacted with and how it is moved, used and disintegrated in daily life and in physical space. I tried to integrate this observation into my work.

Q
Tell us about the techniques you developed during the process.

A 
I made my own tools, which are ink rollers covered with rubber mats. When I roll these over images they gradually break down until the image does not function as an image anymore – I try to get as close as possible to this breaking point. These techniques are ways to scale down the communication and circulation of information. I often use silkscreening, for example, which is a way to move from digital or mechanical mass reproduction to a more manual form of reproduction in smaller quantities. I then use my own methods to further disintegrate them.

Interview with Unseen Magazine

Mechanismus VIII [Omega]. 2017
Pulped color laser prints on wall
218 x 210 cm
Mechanismus VIII [Omega]. 2017
Pulped color laser prints on wall
218 x 210 cm
Installation view
with Isabelle Andriessen
Installation view
with Isabelle Andriessen
Armature [Vide]. 2017
Pulped color laser prints on wall
192 x 165 cm
Armature [Vide], detail. 2017.
Pulped color laser prints on wall.
192 x 165 cm

The idea that matter consists of smaller particles is far from new. In the 6th century BC humanity already considered the thought of a non-static world in which particles only existed by the grace of even smaller particles, until finally the indivisibility of things appears on the mental stage. These underlying thoughts, strongly anchored since the 6th century BC, form the breeding ground for the exhibition A minor state of flux that has been curated by Séan Hannan and Steven van Grinsven.

These and other adjacent ideas form the basis for the works being shown in Arti et Amicitiae, in which fluidity, rotation and mutation are central. The exhibition investigates in a playful way, the 'real' reach of perception. What do we register? What are the processes and structures that pass our eyes? How do we determine what is valuable and what is worthless when everything is constantly in motion? Do we ever see a painting more than once when physiological, political and social circumstances are constantly in transition? The works in this exhibition, measured along a scientific bar, materialize these questions philosophically. By emphasizing the life cycle, the process of deterioration becomes just as important as the moment in which an artwork comes into being. A minor state of flux aims to explore the spectacular in the void and is a plea for embracing transience.

Exhibition text A Minor State of Flux