Peter Rogiers
A Hunter’s Night
Nicolas Provost
Illumination
30 January–15 March 2014
Tim Van Laere
Verlatstraat 23-25
2000 Antwerp
Belgium
T+32 3 257 14 17
F+32 3 257 14 25
info [at] timvanlaeregallery.com
www.timvanlaeregallery.com
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Tim Van Laere Gallery is pleased to announce A Hunter’s Night, Peter Rogiers’s fourth solo show at the gallery.
The title of the exhibition is a reference to the movie Night of the Hunter with Robert Mitchum as a preacher and con artist. Several titles of the sculptures in this show, such as Birth of a new ideology and Order and Discipline, ironically refer to newfound social trends. Rogiers prefers to consider himself as an artist who plays with the tradition and history and its continuity, instead of the social and political contextuality of contemporary art. In the past Rogiers showed unconventional, hybrid sculptures in polyurethane foam, now he experiences with the same forms in aluminum. This resulted in very basic, durable sculptures, with holes, depths and a large dimensionality. To quote the artist: ‘I wanted to bring clearly figurative elements, creating contradictory tensions. These conflicting elements ensure that the forms only slowly reveal themselves and never in a narrative way. They focus on our historical memory, the classical idea of the sculpture. The resin skin and texture of the sculptures remain evocative and expressive and are in contrast with the aluminum pedestals. The sculptures are being reinforced in this exhibition with collages that are no actual drafts for the sculptures, but they are an expression of a mental perception, a virtual space in the mind of the artist.”
His works are in a number of collections, including Mu.ZEE (Fine Art Museum Ostend), SMAK Ghent, M HKA (Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen) and Middelheim Open Air Museum, Antwerp. He has exhibited globally with museums and leading art galleries including solo shows in Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, New York and Los Angeles.
Tim Van Laere Gallery is pleased to announce Illumination, Nicolas Provost’s fourth solo show at the gallery, where he will present a new movie, Illumination, together with three film stills.
Over the past decade, artist and filmmaker Nicolas Provost has carefully shaped a portfolio of works that explore the quirks of human expectation by playing with images from film, literature, and popular culture that are ingrained in our collective memory. In his new film Illumination, Provost focuses on the faces of individual people, fading the background, buildings and other passersby. Time actually seems to have come to a standstill. To quote the artist: “When I started filming the crowd I couldn’t resist thinking of Caravaggio’s high contrasted tenebrism, where the shift from light to dark has little intermediate value. Filmed with a high-speed camera at 240 frames per second, the result in slow motion revealed in detail how the light slowly caresses the body parts appearing out of the darkness. It exposed the intensity of this volatile moment in time where light, color, movement, set and character are dramatically layered in a way that almost feels choreographed. This quest to find moments in daily life where you ask yourself, ‘Is this real or is this fiction?’ has always been an important part of my work. It creates a tension because it is the only mystery we have left, now that we think we know everything.”
His works are in a number of collections, including The New Art Gallery Walsall and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, who share Storyteller (2010), SMAK Ghent and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. His short film Suspension received an honorable mention at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008. He has also exhibited at the Venice Biennale, The San Francisco International Film Festival, CineVegas, The International Film Festival Rotterdam, The Viennale, and The Locarno Film Festival.