Stella Lohaus

Angel Vergara

25 Jan - 10 Mar 2007

ANGEL VERGARA
"Straatman's happy Entry into Brussels" and "Finally united, instructed and free"

In his current exhibition, Angel Vergara shows two new works, which he calls video installations. He projects an animated film onto a painted canvas. The title of the first work is based the famous painting of James Ensor, "Christ's happy Entry into Brussels", and it relates to a performance which Vergara did last year in the context of "Bruxelles Bravo". Approximately twenty firetrucks drove the axe from Brussels North to Brussels South (with their sirens at high volume) and on one of these trucks we see the Straatman ("streetman", the artist underneath a white canvas). This performance was filmed, then Vergara transformed it partly into an animation film, and also into a convas. The final result is the overlapping of the projected film with the canvas, and of the painting and the animated filmic image.
The sound of the work is taken from a radio broadcast programme called "peinture fraiche", Jean Daive interviews the curators of an exhibition on modernism held in London. It relates to the image of the artist in society in the 19th century, and how this is now interpreted.
In "finally united, instructed and free", the same processus is repeated, now based on a performance with dogs which Vergara did in the "Halles de Schaerbeek". Dressed like a dog Vergara does a performance with ca. 15-20 dogs. Also visitors put on a dog-suit and participated in the performance. They paint. The title refers to the pedagogical system and didactic practice: Achieving freedom through the action of painting.
From February through May Angel Vergara exhibits in MAC's in Hornu a new series of works as well as the installation "El Callejero".
For more information tel. 065. 61 38 50.
 

Tags: James Ensor, Angel Vergara