A.B. Meadows

Lionel Estère's Installation "Lange Bos" at SPEELHOVEN 02

A long, thin, pretty straight stem of an unidentified plant, as well as its relatively large & light blossom are seen in the darkness. The plant, referred to as a 'lengthy bush' (lange bos) by the artist, is located at what seems to be the edge of a forest where it is growing next to and in fact, almost 'under' thin tree trunks.

Three strong stagelights have been placed on the ground.
Their light emphasizes or heightens the almost white appearance of the 'long bush'.

It sharpens our perception of the opposition of dark and light areas: the dark interspaces between the trees and the light-stroked tree trunks as well as the whitish bush.

A dreamlike impression of 'nature near-at-hand' is created in the case of the bush and adjacent trees whereas the trees further away recede into the black night.

The 'bush' with its long and straight stem and the blossom(s) is highlighted especially, in an almost fairytale way, as if it was a little child among a number of adults that receives all the attention. Or a princess or prince, standing in her or his own lonely and vulnerable way among the courtiers in the king's palace. 

The observer knows that it is the presence of light flowing from the technical apparatus installed close to the soil at the edge of the forest that is transforming everything. 

And yet, the metal frames from which this light is flowing could strike an audience like mythical flying objects intruding from another world. 

Insofar there exists more than a starkness or intensity inscribed in the contrast of, and transitions between, light and darkness that we discover. 

Being technically produced, the light that pervades and affects the natural darkness of night flows from these metallic things we see that must not be forgotten because, as technical objects, they enter into the visual equation; they are seens, and they are obviously 'matter' processed and formed and installed by man, set against the growing, blooming, blossoming elements of nature. 

At the time of darkness, someone, presumably the artist, has placed the strangely out-of-place, therefore 'strange' objects inside nature which is thus confronted with the difference and 'strangeness'  of these objects but which, by the artifical light these objects emit, has has already taken on a 'strange' appearance itself. 

It is this twin effect, produced by the contradiction of technical and natural 'objects' seen, and by the visual modification of nature achieved as a result of the introduction of electric light, which is at the core of the intervention undertaken in order to create an acute aesthetic perception.
 
 


Tentoonstelling / exposition
" LOCATION / UPDATE "
SPEELHOVEN '02 
(vernissage / opening Sept. 1, 2002)
01.09. - 29.09. 02

[Participating artists:]
Lionel Estère / Pieterjan Ginckels / Henri Jacobs / Emilio López-Menchero / Benoit Roussel / Lukas Vandenabeele / Hans Verhaegen / Freek Wambacq / Sophie Whettall
Curator: Philippe Braem

v.z.v. Speelhoven. Haferbeekstraat 90
B-3200 Aarschot, Tel.-Fax 016 / 56 80 03