Hans Op De Beeck
Exteriors - Installation - 2010
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 12
Installation
Exterior (1)' is a first photo of a new ongoing series of photographs, depicting staged landscapes in the artist's own studio surroundings. These images visually don't deny they are nothing but constructions on scale: spotlights, tripods, cables and other studio tools remain present in the picture. Seemingly contradictory, the artist deliberately doesn't hide these functional side props in order to intensify the authenticity of the layered mood that he tries to evoke, namely feelings of desolation, melancholy and peacefulness. The frontality and the central composition of these panoramic landscape constructions refer to Renaissance painting and the theatre stage. The vastness of the fictive landscapes, the play with light and other means such as the use of artificial fog or snow, bring in mind the traditional composed establishing shot as used in cinema. Thus, these images can be read as a possible beginning of a narrative.
'Private Collection Charles De Stoop, Meise (B)'
