Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys
02 Feb - 17 Mar 2012
JOS DE GRUYTER & HARALD THYS
2 February - 17 March, 2012
For their first solo exhibition at Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Belgian artists Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys conceived a twofold installation composed of entranced gazes and estranging riddles. The main component, stretching out over two rooms, is a portrait gallery of thirty drawings on framed, off-white cardboard. The depicted personae have been stripped down of any attributes, marks of identity, or signs of the time, yet they are quite familiar to the artists themselves. These stolen faces, loosely traced yet highly distinctive, surround the viewer and engage in a wordless tête-à-tête.
All the while, the long-drawn-out, whining computer voices of two francophone women resonate from a new video. Rather than recruiting their actors from the usual suspects, that is to say friends and family members, the artists opted for a more austere and shabby representation of human figures: a couple of polysterene-headed mannequins, facing the viewer without the slightest movement, which previously made their appearance in the 2009 photographic Skeletten-series and the 2010 video Das Loch. While speech is abundant, which isn't often the case in De Gruyter & Thys's videos, sentiment and reason are glaringly absent. The duo's mind-numbing riddles propose nothing more than a newborn absurdism. This sequence of bizarre questions, separated by periods of silence that last just a little bit too long, seems almost designed to disorient the viewer.
Two future events will further animate the exhibition: On Wednesday March 7 a lecture will be held by the artists. Using excerpts from films and documentaries, they will set out to prove the existence of a Parallel World. They will also demonstrate that the Parallel World is ever expanding and will soon be greater than the 'real world'. And on Saturday March 17, the artists will release a record on the occasion of which Erik Thys will play a live concert.
Jos de Gruyter (b. 1965) and Harald Thys (b. 1966) live and work in Brussels. Their multidisciplinary work is rooted in a folksy, tragicomic sensibility honed into an experimental dramaturgy. Future solo exhibitions will take place in 2012 at Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Culturgest (Porto), Mu.ZEE (Ostend) and MuHKA (Antwerpen).
2 February - 17 March, 2012
For their first solo exhibition at Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Belgian artists Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys conceived a twofold installation composed of entranced gazes and estranging riddles. The main component, stretching out over two rooms, is a portrait gallery of thirty drawings on framed, off-white cardboard. The depicted personae have been stripped down of any attributes, marks of identity, or signs of the time, yet they are quite familiar to the artists themselves. These stolen faces, loosely traced yet highly distinctive, surround the viewer and engage in a wordless tête-à-tête.
All the while, the long-drawn-out, whining computer voices of two francophone women resonate from a new video. Rather than recruiting their actors from the usual suspects, that is to say friends and family members, the artists opted for a more austere and shabby representation of human figures: a couple of polysterene-headed mannequins, facing the viewer without the slightest movement, which previously made their appearance in the 2009 photographic Skeletten-series and the 2010 video Das Loch. While speech is abundant, which isn't often the case in De Gruyter & Thys's videos, sentiment and reason are glaringly absent. The duo's mind-numbing riddles propose nothing more than a newborn absurdism. This sequence of bizarre questions, separated by periods of silence that last just a little bit too long, seems almost designed to disorient the viewer.
Two future events will further animate the exhibition: On Wednesday March 7 a lecture will be held by the artists. Using excerpts from films and documentaries, they will set out to prove the existence of a Parallel World. They will also demonstrate that the Parallel World is ever expanding and will soon be greater than the 'real world'. And on Saturday March 17, the artists will release a record on the occasion of which Erik Thys will play a live concert.
Jos de Gruyter (b. 1965) and Harald Thys (b. 1966) live and work in Brussels. Their multidisciplinary work is rooted in a folksy, tragicomic sensibility honed into an experimental dramaturgy. Future solo exhibitions will take place in 2012 at Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Culturgest (Porto), Mu.ZEE (Ostend) and MuHKA (Antwerpen).