5 May 2012

two stories



Two Stories 



What prompted  the exhibition is my hearing the story about how, years ago, the young gallerists-to-be travelled to the Kunstmuseum Bern, where they camped out in the book shop, pouring over books on Paul Klee, and Jürgen Glaesemer, the director of the Paul Klee Stiftung, took them behind the scenes, to the archives of the museum ...  My interest was not so much aroused by the figure of Paul Klee, but by the memory of this event that has somehow taken on the form of an exotic place. I was interested both in the heroism and the sacral dimension, and also in how this image today lives on in their practice as gallery owners. Initially, I intended to retrace this trip to Bern, to the archives of what has become the present Zentrum Paul Klee, together with them.



Two Stories also refers to another story, a story about a matter of language-induced confusion. Originally, it may have had something to do with a dialect in which the word endings are swallowed, perhaps also with a childish logic that immediately associates Switzerland with mountains, but I was always misguidedly convinced that the capital of Switzerland was called Bergen (city in Belgium; its name, literally translated, means Mountains).  I always thought it a strange coincidence that the not so glamorous capital of the Belgian province of Hainaut was - albeit less obviously so - also called Bergen (Mons). In the context of this language confusion, I exchanged the exotic Bern for the slightly drearier city of Bergen (Mons), and spent an afternoon there with gallery owners Bert and Dirk.

Stijn Van Dorpe





18 April 2012



The space between the four legs of a chair


Art fair, Art Brussels 2012

24 August 2011

'if you don't answer, you're driving'



Stijn Van Dorpe and Robbrecht Desmet
Hastings August 2011
Graphic design: Joris Kritis
Printed in an edition of 3 copies by Cassochrome

1 July 2011

10 April 2011

'51.59415, 4.77629'


performance Breda, Lokaal 01 - KOP

11 December 2010

turned s, bronze (2010)





Het werk 'turned s, bronze' bespeelt net zoals vele van mijn sculpturale objecten de wereld van het 'tussen'. Het is een haakje uit een doe -het -zelf zaak getransformeerd in een bronzen kunstobject. Op die manier houdt het werk het midden tussen het banale en het verhevene. Je kan het zien als een sierlijke lijn maar ook heel duidelijk als tastbare materie. Is het een tekening of een sculptuur? De gedraaide S is een hapering in de taal, ze zoekt de plaats daar waar materie en betekenis even worden losgekoppeld. Ze is tegelijk het schone als een stoorzender.

10 December 2010

'cutting the crucial zone'

photo © Bert de Leenheer

performance 'travelling' STUK Leuven

9 December 2010

8 December 2010

travelling / publicatie: 'never look back'


photo © Dirk Pauwels

travelling
table with hole, silver spoon, engraving




photo © Dirk Pauwels

travelling in flanders
bucket, handmade ship, rope 2010