Leon Vranken
29 Jan - 14 Mar 2009
LEON VRANKEN
"The Traveling Riddle"
29.01.09 - 14.03.09
The title of the exhibition The Traveling Riddle can serve as a metaphor for the displayed artwork. From the moment you want to enter the exhibition the riddle is created: the narrow wooden corridor seems to be a closed space. It is entirely fitted into the doorway as if it has been like this for years. When you open the door and look into the space, there is nothing to see at first sight.
Leon Vranken (1975, Maaseik, Belgium) disrupts the expectations. He reverses the natural and accepted way of looking at an exhibition. The usual course of events would be that the spectator enters the room where the exhibition is displayed, views the artwork and moves in closer to take a good look at it, after which he moves away and leaves the room. In this case he/she steps out of the artwork, as it were, moves away from it to have a closer look and afterwards crawls back into it in order to leave the exhibition.
The exhibition/the artwork consists of one entity, of twelve stacked and grouped individual items as well as six compound compositions. Leon Vranken realizes a narrowing-down of the arrangement by deliberately choosing not to place the works in the room, but to position them in one straight line and on one side of the room.
Wood is the basic material in this exhibition. It is found in various shapes and kinds: four types of veneer, oak and pine, hand-painted wood and MDF. Vranken sculpts ‘pure’ geometric shapes (sphere, triangle, cube, oblong) and combines those with derived shapes and appliances/objects. By doing so, the artist expresses a sensitivity towards that particular material, and its diversity.
Remarkable in Leon Vranken’s oeuvre is the short insecurity or confusion it causes with regard to the ‘authenticity’ of what we are observing or with regard to the consequences of a certain act. Unconsciously, the visitor interferes with the artwork by entering the room of the exhibition.
Vranken regularly works with existing objects – found, invented, adapted as well as manufactured items – which he then reinterprets. At first sight, some works look simple and their presentation seems quite normal. Initially, you are struck by the banality. It is only on closer examination that it becomes clear that things are not that simple, that a shift occurs, which presents an enormous amount of attention for details. The tabletop with build-in paint tray, for example, does not rest on ‘existing’ trestles, but on trestles created by the artist, light pine and dark oak side by side, both the trestles and the tabletop doubled. The image is marked out, like the contours of a drawing.
"The Traveling Riddle"
29.01.09 - 14.03.09
The title of the exhibition The Traveling Riddle can serve as a metaphor for the displayed artwork. From the moment you want to enter the exhibition the riddle is created: the narrow wooden corridor seems to be a closed space. It is entirely fitted into the doorway as if it has been like this for years. When you open the door and look into the space, there is nothing to see at first sight.
Leon Vranken (1975, Maaseik, Belgium) disrupts the expectations. He reverses the natural and accepted way of looking at an exhibition. The usual course of events would be that the spectator enters the room where the exhibition is displayed, views the artwork and moves in closer to take a good look at it, after which he moves away and leaves the room. In this case he/she steps out of the artwork, as it were, moves away from it to have a closer look and afterwards crawls back into it in order to leave the exhibition.
The exhibition/the artwork consists of one entity, of twelve stacked and grouped individual items as well as six compound compositions. Leon Vranken realizes a narrowing-down of the arrangement by deliberately choosing not to place the works in the room, but to position them in one straight line and on one side of the room.
Wood is the basic material in this exhibition. It is found in various shapes and kinds: four types of veneer, oak and pine, hand-painted wood and MDF. Vranken sculpts ‘pure’ geometric shapes (sphere, triangle, cube, oblong) and combines those with derived shapes and appliances/objects. By doing so, the artist expresses a sensitivity towards that particular material, and its diversity.
Remarkable in Leon Vranken’s oeuvre is the short insecurity or confusion it causes with regard to the ‘authenticity’ of what we are observing or with regard to the consequences of a certain act. Unconsciously, the visitor interferes with the artwork by entering the room of the exhibition.
Vranken regularly works with existing objects – found, invented, adapted as well as manufactured items – which he then reinterprets. At first sight, some works look simple and their presentation seems quite normal. Initially, you are struck by the banality. It is only on closer examination that it becomes clear that things are not that simple, that a shift occurs, which presents an enormous amount of attention for details. The tabletop with build-in paint tray, for example, does not rest on ‘existing’ trestles, but on trestles created by the artist, light pine and dark oak side by side, both the trestles and the tabletop doubled. The image is marked out, like the contours of a drawing.