Ann Veronica Janssens
07 May - 26 Jun 2010
ANN VERONICA JANSSENS
"May"
7 mai - 26 juin 2010
For her second solo exhibition at Air de Paris, Ann Veronica Janssens has opted for a group of hitherto unshown works. Experimentation remains the order of the day, but with a shift away from the physical immersion in light that marked her previous solo show. This time the gallery serves as a laboratory, with the viewer invited to focus on a series of paradoxical scientific demonstrations: a laboratory devoted no longer to doubt but to contemplation.
The substances Janssens works with seem to lose their primary characteristics and contradict their own properties, becoming in the process oxymoronic proofs at odds with their material premises: confirmations not of hypotheses, but of their contradiction. Water becomes sculpture (Lila’s Dream) and filmed light flutteringly sheds its static qualities, steel softens to the point of apparent liquefaction (IPN). Nor is this allusion to the work of Oscar Niemeyer fortuitous: filmed in real time while taking a break, the architect becomes
a moving statue as portrait paradoxically morphs into visual experience.
On each occasion this experience becomes hypnotically contemplative under the influence of the same two variables: light and time.
Born in 1956 in the United Kingdom, Ann Veronica Janssens lives in Bruxelles. She now has an international reputation, in particular for installations that plunge visitors into coloured artificial fogs that challenge our habits regarding perception and sense of direction (MUKHA 1997, Venice Biennale 1999, Kunsthalle Berne 2003, MAC Marseille 2003, Neue Nationale Galerie Berlin 2001, 1301PE gallery LA 2003.), her bicycles with reflective wheels (Neue Nationale Galerie Berlin 2001, Middleheim Museum Antwerp 2002, MUKHA Antwerp 2003) and other works making play with the parameters of light.
"May"
7 mai - 26 juin 2010
For her second solo exhibition at Air de Paris, Ann Veronica Janssens has opted for a group of hitherto unshown works. Experimentation remains the order of the day, but with a shift away from the physical immersion in light that marked her previous solo show. This time the gallery serves as a laboratory, with the viewer invited to focus on a series of paradoxical scientific demonstrations: a laboratory devoted no longer to doubt but to contemplation.
The substances Janssens works with seem to lose their primary characteristics and contradict their own properties, becoming in the process oxymoronic proofs at odds with their material premises: confirmations not of hypotheses, but of their contradiction. Water becomes sculpture (Lila’s Dream) and filmed light flutteringly sheds its static qualities, steel softens to the point of apparent liquefaction (IPN). Nor is this allusion to the work of Oscar Niemeyer fortuitous: filmed in real time while taking a break, the architect becomes
a moving statue as portrait paradoxically morphs into visual experience.
On each occasion this experience becomes hypnotically contemplative under the influence of the same two variables: light and time.
Born in 1956 in the United Kingdom, Ann Veronica Janssens lives in Bruxelles. She now has an international reputation, in particular for installations that plunge visitors into coloured artificial fogs that challenge our habits regarding perception and sense of direction (MUKHA 1997, Venice Biennale 1999, Kunsthalle Berne 2003, MAC Marseille 2003, Neue Nationale Galerie Berlin 2001, 1301PE gallery LA 2003.), her bicycles with reflective wheels (Neue Nationale Galerie Berlin 2001, Middleheim Museum Antwerp 2002, MUKHA Antwerp 2003) and other works making play with the parameters of light.