13—20.01.2024
Stadhuis / town hall: Beyond the Vanishing Point
(English below)
‘Beyond the Vanishing Point’ is een reflectief traject, geïnitieerd door zeven onafhankelijke kunstenaars, rond het onderwerp rechtvaardigheid in de huidige tijd. Het resultaat van deze uitswisseling is een presentatie en publieksprogramma in en rond ‘de Studio’, een discussie- en deelplatform in het stadhuis van Leuven.
In het kader van het stadsfestival‘New Horizons – Dieric Bouts’ werd kunstenaar Joseph Thabang Palframan door de Stad Leuven uitgenodigd om een werk te maken dat een antwoord biedt op de vraag ‘wat betekent gerechtigheid voor jou?’. Dezelfde vraag werd schilder Dieric Bouts 600 jaar geleden gesteld door de schepenen van Leuven. Voor het pas voltooide stadhuis schilderde hij in 1468 het tryptiek ‘De gerechtigheid van keizer Otto III’. Dit werk moest de machthebbers herinneren aan het belang van hun oordeel en beslissingen.
Palframan trok de vraag open en nodigde zes kunstenaars, allen op hun eigen manier verbonden met de stad Leuven, uit om het raamwerk gezamenlijk te betreden. Niet alleen geïnspireerd door het thema rechtvaardigheid maar ook door de beeldtaal die Bouts gebruikte, met name het lineaire perspectief, verkent de groep het concept van het ‘verdwijnpunt’. Het verdwijnpunt ontstaat wanneer twee lijnen samenkomen in één punt. Het is het punt voorbij wat het oog kan zien, in wezen de grens van onze blik. Achter het verdwijnpunt ligt een uitnodiging: om verder te kijken dan ons eigen perspectief, om te pogen de andere kant te zien. Hier ligt een mogelijkheid, om meer volledige geschiedenissen, mildere waarheden en meer begripvolle verhalen van onder de radar te halen, zichtbaar te maken.
Dit project is een initiatief van de Stad Leuven in samenwerking met de Leuvense atelier- en residentiewerking Cas-co vzw.
-
Aya Koné’s work often deals with the confrontation between culture / heritage / identity and the environments one functions within. A body in conversation with its surroundings. Her practice develops as a method of repair using repetition, re-translation and retrieval.
For the exhibition ‘Beyond the Vanishing Point’, Aya Koné made a series of sculptural interventions surrounding the removal of the King Leopold II statue from the façade of the town hall. She took particular interest in the rituals of care applied to the removal of the statue. The statue is over 200kg of natural stone and holds protected status. To be released, surrounded by external scaffolding, the mortar holding the statue in place had to be cut loose. The statue then had to be lifted from its hook and transferred onto wooden beams. The statue was then carefully wrapped and lifted from its resting place, suspended in midair and carried down to the ground. The statue now sits in the basement of the building.
“The statue is a silent witness to the 19th-century era. But the perception of this does not stand still. By removing the image of Leopold II, we give a current interpretation and meaning to the colonial period. We care for our past and our heritage, but we like to see it in the right perspective. In close consultation with the Real Estate Department and a stone expert, the statue is expertly removed without damaging it.” Councilor for Immovable Heritage Carl Devlies (CD&V)
Aya made an installation in two parts, ‘Vanishing Act I’ and ‘Vanishing Act II’, that mimics this operation. The medium of the sculpture is a live body of yellow oyster mushroom mycelium. As it becomes more settled in its shape mushrooms begin to sprout. She applies the same rituals of care to the sculpture as it grows into form. It will continue growing throughout the exhibition. The form of ‘Vanishing Act I and Act II’, cast from an original wooden African sculpture, replaces the original stone statue of King Leopold II.
References:
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2…
https://www.robtv.be/nieuws/st… -
In their practice, Boran Verstraete mainly focus on themes like identity (is being your authentic self being dominant or submissive to yourself), their background and how to build a path between them and their Indonesian roots. Their recent works are performances that evolve from texts they wrote.
‘I’m Held Together With Safety Pins’, the performance piece made for ‘Beyond the Vanishing point’, exists as a performance where a text written by Boran is told along with music elements. The text is about justice for nature and how that automatically relates to human rights. We along the other animals are also nature. It is about exoskeletons and masks that show how to protect oneself with an honesty that comes from within.
-
Collins Yirenkyi (Antwerp — Leuven, 1992) is one of the 7 selected artist working on the project ‘Beyond the vanishing point’, opening next Saturday at 7pm in the Leuven townhall. Collins is a multidisciplinary artist who works with various mediums and materials to interpret his understanding of art through fashion, sculpting, and painting.
Collins contribution to the project is based on the concept of ‘Sankofa’. ‘Sankofa, literally translated as ‘go back and get it’ is a saying that encourages learning from the past to shape the future. It comes from the Akan proverb “Se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenkyiri,” meaning, “It is not taboo to go back for what you forgot (or left behind).” Researching the concept of ‘Beyond the vanishing point’, Collins was triggered to go back in history and emphasise on the justice that wasn’t served during the 19th Century in Congo. -
Jente Waerzeggers (°Leuven, 1999) is one of the seven artists working on the project ‘Beyond the Vanishing Point’, opening on the 13th of January in the Leuven town hall. He is a Belgian photographer, musician and radio maker. In his work, he’s taking inspiration from sub and pop culture, nightlife and the human condition.
For ‘Beyond the Vanishing Point’, Jente made a photographical series ‘Reference Point’ on supporters of OHL, the local football team. While making this series, Jente took specific interest in the set of conventions imposed in sports, as an analogy to everyday life, which keep everything ‘in line’ or ‘in check’. A universe with its proper codes and stylistic language of lines, referees, stewards and sounds that tell right from wrong. Observing the concept of justice, we can state that one of oldest, clearest and most ancient forms of jurisdiction is still in function in sports stadiums — even though hooliganism, bribery and money laundering are never far away. In dialogue with the monumental photographs, chalk lines are drawn on the floor of the exhibition space. They function as a reference point for the viewer in the exhibition — a use of visual language and tools that set up rules and lines for interaction, but a reality that is always subjective. -
Although mainly working with paint, Joseph Thabang Palframan’s practice is fluid and site-specific. So far his work has mainly been about identity, post- and pre-colonialist aesthetics and race theory from the ground up.
Joseph created a new commission for the Leuven town hall, entering in dialogue with this environment and the work ‘Justice of Otto’, a triptyque created 600 years ago for the same context by Dirk Bouts. The new artwork ‘Strange Ambassador’ or ‘How to get hit and come back better’ addresses notions of brokenness and repair in connection to the war history of Leuven.
After WW1 many soldiers who returned with injuries to the face were referred to as the ‘broken faced’. Their injuries often caused major disfigurations. When returning to society these soldiers’ injuries functioned as disturbing reminders of the horrors of war. This was soon considered psychologically challenging for the soldiers and the public alike. It was decided that the ‘repairing’ of these injuries should also involve the ‘masking’ of the scars; attempts to return the war torn face back to ‘normal’. It was this surgical practice that paved the way for today’s plastic surgery and a nuanced, westernized definition of ‘repair’.The three panels describe:
- A soldier standing in a trench caught in a moment of reflection. We notice, in the top left of the painting, that a bullet has skimmed the top of the trench and is moments away from his face.
- A hospital room — a team of doctors perform surgery on the soldiers’ wounds. High tech tools fill the upper half of the painting and the foreshortened body lays under the harsh surgical light, filling the lower half. We can see three pairs of hands at work. The surgeons’ faces are masked.
- The same soldier, post repair, walking on ‘Halfmaartstraat’ in Leuven. His cap is lowered and collar upturned. This casts a shadow over his scarred face. He is rushing past the viewer. This panel aims to capture the street encounter experience; the moment eyes make contact and stories momentarily cross paths.
Dents and damage appear all over the panels disturbing the main image. These reproduce the pattern of bullet holes in the facade opposite the Gerechtsgebouw on Ferdinand Smoldersplein near the statue of Pieter Counterel. By superimposing this arrangement of bullet holes onto the artwork ‘How to get hit and come back better’, no attempt is made to answer questions or reveal new truths. Rather, this state of being is presented as a response for wider reflection on notions of justice.
-
Lynn Havaux’s practice takes place in two main phases: finding materials, and then putting them together as a sculpture or installation. Then the organic movement in the material that she finds important for further experimentation and process that all blend together in her work.
For Lynn, in justice there needs to be balance: without maintaining an equilibrium there can’t be true justice. The balance represent weighing facts and evidence to decide a verdict. Justice, or to get our rights as humans, has always been a fight, analogous to our search for order and equality in the chaos that is life. All of Lynn’s works have red tones, simulating the anger that was always combined with these battles. She often uses branches, connected at their base but growing seeminly erratic and in different directions, as a metaphor to the human condition.
For ‘Beyond the Vanishing Point’, Lynn made three new works: “The second skin” is a metal structure balances a couple of branches. Over the skin of the branch there’s a layer of wax, a ‘second skin’ that protects the one underneath, the one that is fragile and easy to (get) hurt. In “the flesh” Lynn uses animal blood to display desperation, violence and anger — often feelings trapped as an animal within a body. The last work “The equilibrium of justice” is again about the duty to restore balance not only to society, but also to find that equilibrium one wants to reach within themselves.
-
Olivier Tuba Dils is a painter who explores mixed heritages, justice and injustice within contemporary society. Having Zambian-Belgian nationality, being born in Eswatini, raised in Mozambique; travelled and lived in South Africa, Botswana, Portugal and Germany. He settled down in Belgium during the corona pandemic. The exposure to various cultures and different experiences naturally got him juxtaposing elements he came across in painting, drawing, performance and sculpture. The symbol of the ladder plays and important role in his work, referring to social class mobility and global conflicts, but also dreams. Oli also works on local grassroots projects such as ‘arty party’ where in collaboration with BCB and local artists finance and organise an art festival three to four times a year giving everyone a platform to expose their latest works. For ‘Beyond the Vanishing Point’, Oli explored the topics of Belgian Congo; rubber in relation to the cobalt rush, plaguing the country today
‘Beyond the Vanishing Point’ is a collective trajectory encirculating the topic of justice in current times, involving independent artists Aya Koné, Boran Verstraete, Collins Yirenkyi, Jente Waerzeggers, Joseph Thabang Palframan, Lynn Havaux and Olivier Diels. The outcome of this itinerary is a presentation and public programme (13−20 Jan) in and around ‘the Studio’, a discussion and sharing platform in the Leuven town hall.
In the context of the city festival‘New Horizons — Dieric Bouts’, artist Joseph Thabang Palframan was invited by the City of Leuven to develop a commission that answers to the question‘what does justice mean to you?’. The same question was asked painter Dieric Bouts, 600 years ago, by the aldermen of Leuven. In 1468, he painted the tryptique‘The justice of Emperor Otto III’ for the newly finished townhall. His work had to remember those in power of the importance of their judgment and decisions.
Palframan now opened up the question and invited six artists, all tied to the city of Leuven in their own way, to appropriate the framework. Inspired not only by the theme of justice but also the visual language used by Bouts, most notably his famous linear perspective, the group set off to explore the concept of the ‘vanishing point’. The vanishing point emerges when two lines converge into a single point. It is the point beyond what the eye can see, in essence, the boundary of our gaze. Beyond the vanishing point is an invitation: to see beyond our own perspective(s), to see the other side. It is a collection – of varied stories, gazes, ideas, that when balanced together house the ability to generate more whole histories, more lenient truths, and more understanding narratives.
Please find descriptions of all the participating artists and their contribution to ‘Beyond the Vanishing Point’ below.
-
Aya Koné’s work often deals with the confrontation between culture / heritage / identity and the environments one functions within. A body in conversation with its surroundings. Her practice develops as a method of repair using repetition, re-translation and retrieval.
For the exhibition ‘Beyond the Vanishing Point’, Aya Koné made a series of sculptural interventions surrounding the removal of the King Leopold II statue from the façade of the town hall. She took particular interest in the rituals of care applied to the removal of the statue. The statue is over 200kg of natural stone and holds protected status. To be released, surrounded by external scaffolding, the mortar holding the statue in place had to be cut loose. The statue then had to be lifted from its hook and transferred onto wooden beams. The statue was then carefully wrapped and lifted from its resting place, suspended in midair and carried down to the ground. The statue now sits in the basement of the building.
“The statue is a silent witness to the 19th-century era. But the perception of this does not stand still. By removing the image of Leopold II, we give a current interpretation and meaning to the colonial period. We care for our past and our heritage, but we like to see it in the right perspective. In close consultation with the Real Estate Department and a stone expert, the statue is expertly removed without damaging it.” Councilor for Immovable Heritage Carl Devlies (CD&V)
Aya made an installation in two parts, ‘Vanishing Act I’ and ‘Vanishing Act II’, that mimics this operation. The medium of the sculpture is a live body of yellow oyster mushroom mycelium. As it becomes more settled in its shape mushrooms begin to sprout. She applies the same rituals of care to the sculpture as it grows into form. It will continue growing throughout the exhibition. The form of ‘Vanishing Act I and Act II’, cast from an original wooden African sculpture, replaces the original stone statue of King Leopold II.
References:
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2…
https://www.robtv.be/nieuws/st… -
In their practice, Boran Verstraete mainly focus on themes like identity (is being your authentic self being dominant or submissive to yourself), their background and how to build a path between them and their Indonesian roots. Their recent works are performances that evolve from texts they wrote.
‘I’m Held Together With Safety Pins’, the performance piece made for ‘Beyond the Vanishing point’, exists as a performance where a text written by Boran is told along with music elements. The text is about justice for nature and how that automatically relates to human rights. We along the other animals are also nature. It is about exoskeletons and masks that show how to protect oneself with an honesty that comes from within.
-
Collins Yirenkyi (Antwerp — Leuven, 1992) is one of the 7 selected artist working on the project ‘Beyond the vanishing point’, opening next Saturday at 7pm in the Leuven townhall. Collins is a multidisciplinary artist who works with various mediums and materials to interpret his understanding of art through fashion, sculpting, and painting.
Collins contribution to the project is based on the concept of ‘Sankofa’. ‘Sankofa, literally translated as ‘go back and get it’ is a saying that encourages learning from the past to shape the future. It comes from the Akan proverb “Se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenkyiri,” meaning, “It is not taboo to go back for what you forgot (or left behind).” Researching the concept of ‘Beyond the vanishing point’, Collins was triggered to go back in history and emphasise on the justice that wasn’t served during the 19th Century in Congo. -
Jente Waerzeggers (°Leuven, 1999) is one of the seven artists working on the project ‘Beyond the Vanishing Point’, opening on the 13th of January in the Leuven town hall. He is a Belgian photographer, musician and radio maker. In his work, he’s taking inspiration from sub and pop culture, nightlife and the human condition.
For ‘Beyond the Vanishing Point’, Jente made a photographical series ‘Reference Point’ on supporters of OHL, the local football team. While making this series, Jente took specific interest in the set of conventions imposed in sports, as an analogy to everyday life, which keep everything ‘in line’ or ‘in check’. A universe with its proper codes and stylistic language of lines, referees, stewards and sounds that tell right from wrong. Observing the concept of justice, we can state that one of oldest, clearest and most ancient forms of jurisdiction is still in function in sports stadiums — even though hooliganism, bribery and money laundering are never far away. In dialogue with the monumental photographs, chalk lines are drawn on the floor of the exhibition space. They function as a reference point for the viewer in the exhibition — a use of visual language and tools that set up rules and lines for interaction, but a reality that is always subjective. -
Although mainly working with paint, Joseph Thabang Palframan’s practice is fluid and site-specific. So far his work has mainly been about identity, post- and pre-colonialist aesthetics and race theory from the ground up.
Joseph created a new commission for the Leuven town hall, entering in dialogue with this environment and the work ‘Justice of Otto’, a triptyque created 600 years ago for the same context by Dirk Bouts. The new artwork ‘Strange Ambassador’ or ‘How to get hit and come back better’ addresses notions of brokenness and repair in connection to the war history of Leuven.
After WW1 many soldiers who returned with injuries to the face were referred to as the ‘broken faced’. Their injuries often caused major disfigurations. When returning to society these soldiers’ injuries functioned as disturbing reminders of the horrors of war. This was soon considered psychologically challenging for the soldiers and the public alike. It was decided that the ‘repairing’ of these injuries should also involve the ‘masking’ of the scars; attempts to return the war torn face back to ‘normal’. It was this surgical practice that paved the way for today’s plastic surgery and a nuanced, westernized definition of ‘repair’.The three panels describe:
- A soldier standing in a trench caught in a moment of reflection. We notice, in the top left of the painting, that a bullet has skimmed the top of the trench and is moments away from his face.
- A hospital room — a team of doctors perform surgery on the soldiers’ wounds. High tech tools fill the upper half of the painting and the foreshortened body lays under the harsh surgical light, filling the lower half. We can see three pairs of hands at work. The surgeons’ faces are masked.
- The same soldier, post repair, walking on ‘Halfmaartstraat’ in Leuven. His cap is lowered and collar upturned. This casts a shadow over his scarred face. He is rushing past the viewer. This panel aims to capture the street encounter experience; the moment eyes make contact and stories momentarily cross paths.
Dents and damage appear all over the panels disturbing the main image. These reproduce the pattern of bullet holes in the facade opposite the Gerechtsgebouw on Ferdinand Smoldersplein near the statue of Pieter Counterel. By superimposing this arrangement of bullet holes onto the artwork ‘How to get hit and come back better’, no attempt is made to answer questions or reveal new truths. Rather, this state of being is presented as a response for wider reflection on notions of justice.
-
Lynn Havaux’s practice takes place in two main phases: finding materials, and then putting them together as a sculpture or installation. Then the organic movement in the material that she finds important for further experimentation and process that all blend together in her work.
For Lynn, in justice there needs to be balance: without maintaining an equilibrium there can’t be true justice. The balance represent weighing facts and evidence to decide a verdict. Justice, or to get our rights as humans, has always been a fight, analogous to our search for order and equality in the chaos that is life. All of Lynn’s works have red tones, simulating the anger that was always combined with these battles. She often uses branches, connected at their base but growing seeminly erratic and in different directions, as a metaphor to the human condition.
For ‘Beyond the Vanishing Point’, Lynn made three new works: “The second skin” is a metal structure balances a couple of branches. Over the skin of the branch there’s a layer of wax, a ‘second skin’ that protects the one underneath, the one that is fragile and easy to (get) hurt. In “the flesh” Lynn uses animal blood to display desperation, violence and anger — often feelings trapped as an animal within a body. The last work “The equilibrium of justice” is again about the duty to restore balance not only to society, but also to find that equilibrium one wants to reach within themselves.
-
Olivier Tuba Dils is a painter who explores mixed heritages, justice and injustice within contemporary society. Having Zambian-Belgian nationality, being born in Eswatini, raised in Mozambique; travelled and lived in South Africa, Botswana, Portugal and Germany. He settled down in Belgium during the corona pandemic. The exposure to various cultures and different experiences naturally got him juxtaposing elements he came across in painting, drawing, performance and sculpture. The symbol of the ladder plays and important role in his work, referring to social class mobility and global conflicts, but also dreams. Oli also works on local grassroots projects such as ‘arty party’ where in collaboration with BCB and local artists finance and organise an art festival three to four times a year giving everyone a platform to expose their latest works. For ‘Beyond the Vanishing Point’, Oli explored the topics of Belgian Congo; rubber in relation to the cobalt rush, plaguing the country today