Surface Secluded Objects, 2015
Formica on MDF, concrete, dust from black MDF
Vibrant Matter
2015
KIOSK, GentFormica on MDF, concrete, dust from black MDF
Vibrant Matter borrows the title of a book by American political theorist Jane Bennett, in which she makes an ontological analysis of the primary relation between ‘man’ and ‘thing’ and of the agency of the thing itself, what she calls ‘vital materialism’ or ‘thing- power’.
The fascination for the concept of ‘materiality’ seems at odds with the prevailing economic tendency for hiding the physical processes of production from our view. Our contemporary Western society is driven by digital technology and keeps evolving towards an exclusively knowledge-based economy. The remaining production activities are moved to industrial areas set apart from residential neighbourhoods, or to faraway low-wage countries. This has undeniable effects on our relationship with matter: we alienate from what we eat, wear, or live in, as we do from the awareness of what is authentic and what is manipulated, what is real and what is virtual.
The artists in this show share a similar artistic awareness of the process of dematerialization: they counter standardized industrial production with a personalized language in which the main concern is the search for the essence of form and matter in relation to man and our architectural environments. Built on the power of association, a simple gesture, the autonomous form and a minimum of material used for its own sake, the resultant works are ‘poor’, often radically austere, with a surprisingly tangible effect.
Throughout the exhibition, a recurrent use of raw materials and everyday materials stripped of their basic functionality through a process of personalization can be noticed. Some of the pieces here seem to float in between the iconic object and the generic – because essentially industrially produced – object. In Surface secluded objects, Kato Six investigates the ornamental possibilities of Formica and concrete surfaces.
Formica on MDF, concrete, dust from black MDF
Concrete
Dust from black MDF
Concrete
Formica on MDF
Formica on MDF
Formica on MDF