Exhibition: 6 June - 4 July 2008

your-space, Van Abbemuseum, Bilderdijklaan, 10, Eindhoven

With Aline Bouvy / John Gillis, Rossella Biscotti / Kevin Van Braak / Bart Schonderbeek, Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Sofie Haesaerts, ICE AGE, Kosten Koper, Douglas  Park, Grégoire Motte, Claudia  Radulescu, Kurt  Ryslavy, Christophe Terlinden, Michael Van den Abeele, Freek Wambacq + NG

Opening Thursday 5 June 2008 with performances by ICE AGE, Douglas Park, Grégoire Motte + NG

The title From Love, with Brussels is inspired by the record From Brussels With Love that was released by Les disques du crépuscule in 1980. If the title is very romantic, the project revolves around the toponymy of the your-space platform situated inside the Van Abbe, which becomes the appropriated space of its temporary guests and visitors.

Komplot operates as a mobile curatorial team, infiltrating public space and architectural structures to foster artistic projects which trespass borders. Exploring nebulous environments and fluctuating contexts, new territories and original forms of expressions, Komplot favors the development of the production and diffusion of residual pieces and traces for the events it organizes. For From Love, With Brussels, Komplot presents pieces which adopt a similar infiltrational and performative strategy, in terms of display and reception.

The statement of From Love, with Brussels acts as a counterpart to the assertive profile of Freek Lomme’s proposal The Return of the Dutch for your-space in Brussels, operating in the spartan environment of Komplot's residency space, a former car repair garage which opens onto the street.

With the support of deBuren, Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Ministère de la Communauté française  Wallonie-Bruxelles, Dior Parfum

Invitation by Ivo Provoost & Simona Denicolai

Kosten Koper thinks his boss is Flemish.

Michael Van Den Abeele, Smoking, animation video, 2005, 7min. sound, colour

FROM LOVE, WITH BRUSSELS ontwikkelt zich rond de toponymie van your-space binnen het Van Abbe museum, een museale ruimte die een platform wordt voor  haar tijdelijke gasten en bezoekers.

Komplot fungeert als een mobiel team van curatoren. De groep infiltreert in de publieke ruimte en structuur, en initieert artistieke projecten die grensoverschrijdend werken. Komplot steeds op zoek naar onstabiele omgevingen en fluctuerende contexten, naar steeds nieuw terrein en originele vormen van expressie. Hierbinnen is het de missie van Komplot om strategieën te ontwikkelen voor de productie en diffusie van de resultaten van events die ze organiseert.

Voor FROM LOVE, WITH BRUSSELS presenteert Komplot werken die diezelfde strategie van infiltratie en performance bezitten in hun manier van presentatie en perceptie. De statement van FROM LOVE, WITH BRUSSELS werkt als een tegengewicht voor het assertieve profiel van het voorstel van Freek Lomme, The Return Of The Dutch dat door your-space gepresenteerd zal worden in de ruimte van Komplot in Brussel.

Invitation by Ivo Provoost & Simona Denicolai

Douglas Park (UK) visual artist, writer (of literary prose and critical essays, both mostly art connected), sometimes exhibition curator (and increasingly all practices and roles combined) performed for the opening.

Douglas Park performing at the opening next to Freek Wambacq's work and introducing performance by Grégoire Motte.

Exhibition view with works by

Aline Bouvy (L) / John Gillis (B) develop an eclectic “Gesamtkunstwerk” approach where post-punk or contemporary pop music references confront with elements reminiscent of a more established cultural tradition and fashion.

Freek Wambacq (B) created Stadium IV for the Garage in Brussels as the first part of a stone sculpture that reproduce a fragment of the starting block of the original Olympic Game stadium in Greece. The sculpture is to be continued in other places in order to be completed.

Asbak is a series of decorative ashtrays that  Michael Van den Abeele (B) recuperated to place them on plinths he molded in cement. The plinths are all of different shapes and the ashtrays vary in style. Together, they create a space for smoking or non smoking, depending of the context and therefore challenge the viewer in the parcours of the works proposed by Komplot by the van Abbe. 

The book Europäer (2007, Komplot publisher) by Kurt Ryslavy (A) is a self-referential text by the artist, translated into 36 languages spoken in Europe. The artist tells the story of his wine trading, the main ground and topic of his artistic occupation and production. The borders between the two deliberately fluctuate, when he shows documents as paintings or integrates invoices and lists in his work. The book is usually presented with a performance by the artist.

Claudia Radulescu, Incitation à la vie privée, 2004, tubes lumineux, 200cm x 90cm x 10cm

Claudia, rabattement érotique de l'ange.
"alors" dit Baudelaire, quand le monde aura fini, "alors elles ne seront plus qu'impitoyable sagesse, sagesse qui condamnera tout, fors l'argent, tout, même les erreurs des sens". L'écriture d'un prénom au néon induit l'intime, dites toujours, le désir, depuis que Lacan nous le faisait remarquer, est le suppôt de la refente du sujet. Claudia 0478 608 357, pièce usuelle aussi belle que le Private Life de Grace Jones. "Incitation à la vie privée ", voici la proposition, le dispositif devient free, volte et fluide, enclin à l'aléatoire, agencé selon un procédé poétique, j'entends, trouver l'éloquence sans but avoué, faire la part belle à l'intuition et dans le meilleur des cas on attend le retour des fabulistes. Car c'est ça qui fera l'opus, toutes les bribes privées, notion excessivement vague pour l'auteur, de vous à moi, sentiments choisis.

Jean Paul Jacquet, avril 2004

From left to right:

Aline Bouvy / John Gillis (collages and sculpture)

Kurt Ryslavy (video, chair, painting, catalogue and business card)

Freek Wambacq (plinth)

Michael Van den Abeele (sculpture)

Grégoire Motte, The necklace which stains, 2008, lipstick, shirt, neon

Grégoire Motte (F) works on the interstices, in the spaces between the artworks and often with elements taken from the context that he desplace or transform.

Kevin van Braak (NL) & Rossella Biscotti (I) invite the architect Bart Schonderbeek (NL) to participate in The Good Life, a project inspired by the homonymous book of architect Inaki Abalos which invites one to travel in the imagination, to stimulate the pleasure of thinking, to live intensively, to encourage the invention of a house that doesn’t exist yet. The project explores the relationship between the architectural elements of a house and the construction of a movie set. The mobility of the set allows the rupture of the fixed structure of a house and starts a process of exploration in which new ways are formulated for people to use the environment. The Good Life involves the building of a house/structure that becomes the main character of a movie in which the movement of the local community/actors inside the house will test and push the design of the architectural elements towards experimental shapes. Salento, which is in the region Puglia in the South of Italy, will be the location of the project.

Sofie Haesaerts (B) made a slide piece titled What happens on Monday. Même les coiffeurs sont fermés. In Sofie Haesaert’s work, the functional object becomes unusable but is still recognisable. Within the changing position of the elements, the search for composition, form, rhythm, light and shadow can result in sculptures, spatial changes, site-specific installations or photographic studies that follow this evolution of the "variable or ever-changing sculpture".

FR:

Sofie Hasaerts : Projection dia à partir d'images de l’intérieur du musée, des tabourets qui se déplacent et mettent l'accent sur l'aspect ludique d'une architecture qui est austère et minimale. L'animation de ces objets dans l'espace était complétée d'images d'origami fait à partir de cartons d'invitation du musée mis en mouvement également.

Simona Denicolai et Ivo Provoost : Pièce créée pour l'exposition Architectures Of Survival de Berlin, insertion dans le magazine Zitty d'une phrase qui suggère qu'ils vont projeter l'image d'un politicien sur son dos alors qu'il est endormi par des somnifères. Le magazine a été encadré pour cette nouvelle présentation de la pièce, soulignant la muséification de ce genre d'insertion artistique dans la presse. Les artistes détournent leur propre travail pour le recontextualiser ailleurs dans le temps.

Aline Bouvy / John Gillis : Sculpture à partir de sièges du musée sur lesquels les visiteurs pouvaient s'asseoir. Ils ont transformé ces sièges en un animal hybride rampant au sol, figure aveugle aux oreilles proéminentes, le visage recouvert de longs cheveux. Etrange réinterprétation du sphinx dans une version un peu SM en cuir noir, cette pièce était présentée avec deux collages qu'ils ont créés en réponse à des affiches de Sol LeWitt qui se trouvaient dans la cafétéria du musée. Détournant l'original en remplaçant le nom par le leur, cette pièce parle aussi de l'autoportrait, de l'autoreprésentation des artistes dans leur dualité de couple.

Michael Van Den Abeele : Film d'animation qui montre la cigarette comme un objet de désir pour quelqu'un qui essaie d'arrêter de fumer, une série de cendriers sur pied en ciment qui sont à la fois des stèles et des urnes funéraires et une aquarelle représentant une figure dans trois bandes aux couleurs du drapeau hollandais. Les pièces évoquent tout autant l'interdit de fumer dans le lieu d’art que le rapport avec la mort, Eros et Tanathos, sujet qui fait écho au dessin de visage allongé au nez phallique.

Freek Wambacq continue la ligne de marbre, une pièce commencée à Komplot, à Bruxelles, en 2007. La sculpture de marbre au sol représente un fragment de  starting block du stade olympique historique en Grèce. Cette pièce qui marque l'espace à la manière d'une ruine ressortait visuellement sur la moquette noire et entrait en relation avec la pièce d'Aline et John tout auatant que celles de Michael Van Den Abeele. L’artiste a également exposé une liste de sauces pour frites, imprimée sur un A4 à la manière des friteries belges, clin d'oeil au cliché bruxellois, carte postale qui répond au titre de l'exposition.

Many of Simona Denicolai (I) & Ivo Provoost (B) interventions originate from a questioning of the 'identity sphere' in its mental, socio-economical or physical acceptation. And the first social cell, the primary source of confrontation and exchange with otherness is the couple, which in their case is their creative nucleus. Distinction between public and private spheres is therefore often consciously blurred. Reacting to the additive and mobile strategy of the project Architectures of Survival, they disseminated an announcement, describing a mental image, repeated until this image attains more street credibility than its actualisation.

Christophe Terlinden (B) made this piece out of a crumpled paper and drawings representing mountains that are accompagnied. When unfolded, the sheet reproduce the snowy and rocky surface of the mountain : Playing with shade and light effects, conferring the drawings with a material texture.

+ NG filmed the opening and will insert this document in the cycle of videos about places she visits.

Unser Debüt: Our Debut is a performance by Brussels based group ICE AGE which has as its core members Kosten Koper, Jos Moers, Jodee Chung & Manuel von Rahden. Through the use of spurious hermetic detailing they tackle notions of ambition, conformity and opportunism.  For their debut concert they will asking and answering four questions vital to be posed before stepping onto the stage : Where do we position ourselves? What do we have to say? Do we believe in love? What is the economic function of nostalgia? The denouement provided via the performance of four songs by German group Die Tödliche Doris : 'The Deadly Doris' (their 1984 album being titled Unser Debüt, a parody about commercialism and conformance). This evening in the absence of Chung & von Rahden they will be augmented by Pascale Emons & Jana Plückelmann from Dutch No Wave group Titmachine.

LOVE LETTER FROM KOMPLOT

We Brussel you
If it rains, everybody will be in a different mood, after two hours driving.
Gregoire is sponsored by Dior and would like to have so many female fans using his lipstick necklace. He will leave his shirt after the performance, in the passage in front of the ladies’ restroom. A new shirt.
Christophe’s candy / drawings distributor is empty. One ball of these singular editions, en connaissance de cause, made the journey to Eindhoven. What is it?
Claudia’s neon with her Belgian mobile telephone matches the soft heavy black carpet.
Who will dial her number? Beware! Do not forget to add the international dial code for Belgium + 32: expensive.
Michael’s asbakken  ashtrays and sculptures. It is not allowed to smoke anyway, in a museum. His spuitbus van Eindhoven: hung very low, as a singular flag.
Impossible, very low, ceiling, “le ciel nous tombe sur la tête”. At the same time, this puts us closer to the luxurious and sensual carpet, as if it were inviting us to lay down on the floor, to be absorbed by it.
Belgian Love, What is it?
Freek has added a new module to his sculpture: Stadium IV, as a reference to the starting block of the Stadium of Olympia in Greece. Four elements are already spread across Europe, as cartography of ourselves, for an eternal starting point. Will a piece of this evolutive, expansive, modest and imperialist sculpture remain in Eindhoven? 
Kurt is European, he is Austrian, he lives in Brussels, he is an artist and a wine saler. You can buy his wine. His VAT number is clearly visible in his edition.
Douglas is a bit of a speech terrorist. Set him free during the opening! Will the officials resist his discursive charm assaults? Maybe he loves Broodthaers too.
Kosten believes his Boss is Flemish. He also believes in the power of Ice Age, as a lateral approach to Belgian love and clairvoyance. Who said the Belgian press was the only one to salute Die Tödliche Doris? 
Aline and John needed the two-seaters stools of the museum to do their sculpture.
Sofie has explored the Van Abbemuseum, searching for the perfect locations for her ephemeral sculptures, le temps d’une photo.
One is not allowed to telephone in a museum in Belgium. Nor in the Netherlands, we believe.
Ivo and Simona have invited us here and invite us to the “inconvenient truth” of an impossible mental image.
+ NG? Who is she? Where is she?
Kevin, Rossella and Bart are finally making their coming out with the sculptured van. As The Good Life project will be continued in the guise of a house and a film in Italy, we hope that we shall be all invited there.
With Love from Brussels,

KMPLT