"JUDAS AND THE WATCHTOWER" AMEL OMAR & SID DANKERS
"A HÂ-HÂ" LAURA DE JAEGER, CYRIAQUE VILLEMAUX, NIENKE FRANSEN
"MAYBE ON EARTH" SIBERT MISPELON & JULIEN JONAS
2023-2024
In May, I visit an elegant house near Avenue Brugmann. In the green wooded garden, a large grey cat, inflated and aerosolised, stares at me with its yellow eyes. A small pond separates us. His brown companion sleeps in a ball in the tall grass. A little further on, a rusty white iron garden table is fitted with a magnifying glass. Was it she who made the inventory of the flora and fauna that I find on the back of the map? At the far end of the garden, at the foot of a high brick wall, here I am, my heels sinking into the mud. I press my eye against the small hole in a creamy Plexiglas box. I catch a glimpse of a lady lifting her dress, revealing her swollen legs (water retention?) and showing a hermaphroditic penis. I smile, expecting this kind of naughtiness from the male representative of this trio of artists. And then I feel a bit binary after this hermaphroditic track. Nearby, in the bushes, a little painted wooden man is looking at me with anger. Have I disturbed him and what is he doing behind the tree? At first glance, on the front side, he looks like a graphic sculpture with two coloured John Baldessari's circles but on the other side it's more like a dickhead with a pair of candy-pink balls entitled "Hello, mister art professor". A score to settle? in the bushes?
In June, Lucy, peaks invites me again.
This time, in a recently-built building on Boulevard Léopold II in Molenbeek. In front of a gate, a crowd of young people dressed in dark colours. After waiting a while, my turn arrives and I take my place in a lift with a guide in a red Honda cap. Down to the basement, the doors open, the smell of sewage. Water is definitely accumulating everywhere. A panel cage (lift?), cement brick walls and doors, lots of doors. Some are opened by design, others by mistake, and I end up in the rubbish bin where I examine each container to see if it has been the subject of an artistic intervention. It's not the case. Back in the corridor, a loudspeaker on the ceiling emits an indefinite noise that contrasts with the precise clicking of the meters. I walk past some narrow consoles with metal legs. Their surface, halfway up, is covered with a fine layer of dust, moved by unstoppable fingers, creating a pictorial effect. On the floor are Plexiglas cubes, one of which contains a model kitchen with a sink where you'd like to run water. A reminder that each dwelling unit has its own cellar and probably a parking space. Lots of squares and rectangles.
Lucy, peaks. Something to do with (under) ground, ( back) garden and corridors. Treasure hunts, escape rooms and holes to direct our gaze. Memories of this studio on Boulevard Clovis with a suspended telescopic installation and a peephole to look into... a corridor. Magnifying glass, yellow eyes, coloured circles, a small black hole, large iridescent plastic balloons, door locks.
I'm waiting for the next invitation.
Roshan Di Puppo