Material

With Pierre-Olivier Arnaud, Linus Bill & Adrien Horni, Stephan Keppel, Erik van der Weijde and Philippe van Wolputte

Curated by Erik van der Weijde

« Reproduction as the raw material for creating new things. »

A visit to the 2014 Paris Photo made me reflect on a couple of recurring concerns. The apparent fetish the photography market displays towards smooth surfaces and the ongoing question whether photography is art or not. From an artist’s point of view, this made me want to show works by a few artists who simply accept photography as a tool for all its reproductive qualities. All the works shown in Material gain meaning within the context of photography, but none of the artists is a photographer (in the classical sense). 

Photography, in different stages of its process, is part of all the exhibited works. It may have been the tool to translate a three-dimensional form into a two-dimensional one, or to collect and archive images, or to reproduce a previously conceived work. This photographic stage, through which each artwork went, has then been emphasized or rejected by the artists in order to provide new layers of meaning to their ideas. The carefully chosen material also provides layers to the work, according to each artist’s point of view on reproduction: A common value shared in these works is that reproduction is not used to merely copy, but to create new things.

Erik van der Weijde

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Philippe van Wolputte shows a work from his Asbestos series. A larger than life reproduction of an advertisement for the hazardous Asbestos, using photocopy, becomes a dark comment on a material once marketed as a cheerful family product.

Stephan Keppel’s diptych reproduces his own photographs of plants in silkscreen on found sheets of Pantone paper. Different layers of reproduction and repetition become the carriers for Keppel’s images, shot in the streets of Paris.

Linus Bill & Adrien Horni present one of their large scale Mixed Media works. Whenever they sell a work on paper, B&H make a b/w „copy“ on linen of the same size. The copy then replaces the original in future exhibitions. The „copy“ is a b/w silkscreen print on linen made from a photographic reproduction of a color work on paper.

Pierre-Olivier Arnaud large grey image of a flower is pasted on the wall. This unique piece is made of a hundred silk screened copies, which all remain available for any future owner, minus the ones that have already been shown and pasted on walls.

Erik van der Weijde’s mono-prints are images taken from the series Hiroshima. All photographs are taken in the Motomachi housing complex, the modernist final part of the reconstruction and rebuilding of Hiroshima. The fragile looking prints are unique transfers based on laser prints and held by small marble stands.