06 Feb 2015

Vibrant Matter, an exhibition at KIOSK, Ghent

'VIBRANT MATTER', a group exhibition on the occasion of 5 years of KIOSK.
With: Katinka Bock, Edith Dekyndt, Thea Djordjadze, Matias Faldbakken, Karsten Födinger, Camilla Løw, Valérie Mannaerts, Benoit Platéus, Eva Rothschild, Analia Saban & Kato Six.

The great importance of the materiality of an object or work of art for the artist has been a recurrent topic throughout KIOSK's trajectory. 'Vibrant Matter' is an attempt to bring together different 'material' approaches, in a group show that features both artists who exhibited with us before, and new names.

The fascination for the concept of 'materiality' seems at odds with the prevailing economic tendency for hiding the physical processes of production from our view. Our contemporary Western post-industrial society is dominated by digital technology and keeps evolving towards an exclusively knowledge-based economy. The remaining production activities are moved to industrial areas set apart from residential neighbourhoods, or to faraway low-wage countries. This has undeniable effects on our relationship with matter: we alienate from what we eat, wear, or live in, as we do from the awareness of what is authentic and what is manipulated, what is real and what is virtual.

The artists in this show share a similar artistic awareness of the process of dematerialization: they counter standardized industrial production with a personalized language in which the main concern is the search for the essence of form and matter. In 'Vibrant Matter', the artists, in their very individual ways, all use a minimum of material to attain a multi-layered evocative power. The starting point can be a basic industrial typology, a traditional craft, or an improvisatory merging of personal and external influences. Regardless of whether the ensuing manipulation of the material happens in a manual or in an industrial process, whether the results are temporary, unique, or serial, in each instance the material is used for its own sake. This results in 'poor', often radically austere work.

Here indeed lies the essence of 'Vibrant Matter', an exhibition that seeks to stage a direct, vibrant confrontation through a series of sense-provoking paintings, sculptures, objects, and installations. Through their relation with the other objects, and with the architectural givens of the gallery space, the individual works must assert their own validity. And just like these individual works, the show as a whole hopes to establish a subjective understanding of the primary interconnectedness of matter and man.