Reality by Zero
Wout Neutkens, Sylvie Verdierre
pictures by Chun-Han Chiang
Reality by Zero, 8th of July - 13th of August 2017
Polar room W139
Opening Friday the 7th of July 2017, 20:00 - 01:00
Each stitch of the needle is a postponement of doubt... each spool of yarn... the length of its thread, leads closer to a statement... an idea... that despite the precarious conditions of speaking, consolidates…
The cardboard is coated with a skin of fabric which causes the thread... (The thread is the blood that pumps life into it)... the dance of the needle... calls on the growth of the sculptures... with the movement of the needle... we write the space... create space... Cardboard is the skeletal structure... the skin is the fabric... the threads are the blood vessels and the needle the soul or the now... The needle is god... if it is ready you have a creature... joining the group... the grace of people who see it... they see that it is a whole and a single individual… (conversations with Wout and Sylvie)
To the degree that material and immaterial environments turn into an extension of humanity, they enter into the realm of self conscious reflection... a limbo of cultural conservatism, a world of outspoken law and obscure convention. The stage for irony and cavalier escapism... the tentatively post-modern...
However, many of us try to escape these echoey surroundings, in order to find motivations for life and work elsewhere instead. Largely independent of the social validation and affirmation processes common within a certain group or society, some of us seem to have obtained the means to operate in such manner.
The works of Wout Neutkens and Sylvie Verdierre and the creative process that belongs to it, is a good example of this. Their work is like an outpouring of their life...tumors, erections... births and visions... but also the continued transition between abstraction and reality come to the fore. Simplifications to better understand something, result in models and calculations paired with an implicit surrender to the complexity of our world.
Physics, emotion and aesthetic considerations become closely linked in these works. They are thought processes, materialised and evidently laden...
All the works to be seen in Reality by Zero are on public view for the first time. The exhibition takes place in the Polar Room, the first floor exhibition space at W139.