Johan Creten participe à l'exposition Higher Powers Command chez LHOIST en Belgique avec une de ses sculptures (petite version de Strange Fruit).
Higher Powers Command
Une exposition d'oeuvres de la Collection Lhoist
Une exposition d'oeuvres de la Collection Lhoist
Commissaire Chantal Pontbriand
Communiqué de presse:
TO BE
TO BEGIN
TO END
TO WORK OUT
TO BE WITH
TO TRADE
TO ASSEMBLE
TO SURPRISE
TO STUMBLE
TO RAVE
TO MONUMENTALIZE
TO TERRITORIALIZE
TO BEGIN
TO END
TO WORK OUT
TO BE WITH
TO TRADE
TO ASSEMBLE
TO SURPRISE
TO STUMBLE
TO RAVE
TO MONUMENTALIZE
TO TERRITORIALIZE
The title of the exhibition borrows from a work by Sigmar Polke, Higher Powers Command, which belongs to the Lhoist Collection. The exhibition coincides with the twentieth anniversary of the Lhoist building in Limelette. The collection started in the same years the building was being planned. Higher Powers Command is part of fourteen photo-engravings dating from 1968 (Polke’s graduation portfolio for the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf).
I am particularly taken by this period in history because it echoes our times, at a moment where global crisis and the questioning of values are at a high point. The image I found in the catalogue of the Lhoist Collection shows a man clasped within a large tree, eyes shut. This fusion between man and tree calls out to the viewer very strongly, recalling man’s links with nature and the world. How can we be in the world? Where can we find the necessaryresources to conduct our lives? Who is in the driver’s seat - is it the human being or the surrounding world? How do the personal and intimate coexist with the forces that inhabit this world, which so often give the impression that things are out of control? What it is like to be without power? How, on the other hand, can we act upon the world? How do we let go of the forces within?
These are questions that we must all face at one point; executives, officials, politicians all have to take on responsibilities and share them collectively. The world of the image reflects these questions of command and the positioning of self in relation to others. Rodney Graham’s photographs of inverted trees are particularly indicative for instance.
Also responding to a work by Richard Serra, Verb List Compilation: Actions to Relate to Oneself, also from 1968, the exhibition analyzes the concept of power as seen in art and images through a series of verbs.
Chantal Pontbriand_guest curator
Curator of the collection_Jacqueline d’Amécourt
www.lhoist-collection.com
