Telling a Mind, Stop being a Mind
Solo Show curated by Alberto García del Castillo and Sonia Dermience.
Komplot, Brussels 2012.
Sonia Dermience writes in the press release accompanying the show:
‘The Batsheva Show’ is the title of the big faceless head cut in three pieces standing in the middle of the space. This was originally made as a backdrop for a TV show the artist was planning to create. This is not the only theatrical element of the exhibition ‘Telling A Mind Stop Being A Mind’. It is conceived as a possible encounter of this head with a new video, a new installation and paintings the artist made a few years ago (2007). The display of the sculptural and pictorial elements on the linoleum floor and painted windows create one more layer of image, colour and patterns that could let the main characters of the show emerge. The main characters are two rabbis portrayed in an oil painting; the artist represented in the big face and the artist in dialogue with her friend Alien Christiaens about meditation in the video. The long dialogue of the video is mute and subtitled. Only the countdown from 100 to 1 is audible at the beginning of the video. The image is a progressive mingling of the two faces through a broken mirror. Is everything symbolic in this show? There is a chandelier made out of brooms hanging from the ceiling, holding candles and drippings of wax. Not far away, a lamp stands without its shade, and the bulb (The bulb will be lit) is hanging upside down. These are the elements of the programmatic scene. The muted voices in the video speak about the possibility and benefit of meditation as a loss of oneself by emptying your mind of any thought. What is a thought? Thinking about thinking? exhibition as a place where you can make the void? Waiting for the visitor, we can not stop thinking about the relationship between the rabbis in the paintings and the women in the video. TV and theatre. Sartre and Godot. The lamp, the linoleum floor and the paintings are old-fashioned. The colours are brownish, Bordeaux, beige, and grey. The Bordeaux paint blocks the windows. I can not stop thinking about a theatre piece by Brecht or Sartre: « huis-clos » is a French word used for theatre pieces that can be translated in English as«meeting in camera » or «meeting behind closed doors ». ‘Huis clos’ is also the title of a theatre piece by Sartre that is translated in English as ‘No Exit’ or ‘No Way Out’. It is a depiction of the afterlife in which three deceased characters are punished by being locked in a room together for eternity and is the source of one of Sartre's most famous and most often misinterpreted quotations, l'enfer, c'est les autres ("Hell is other people").
A review about the exhibition in This is Tomorrrow online art magazine:
http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/bat-sheva-ross-telling-a-mind-stop-being-a-mind
Solo Show curated by Alberto García del Castillo and Sonia Dermience.
Komplot, Brussels 2012.
Sonia Dermience writes in the press release accompanying the show:
‘The Batsheva Show’ is the title of the big faceless head cut in three pieces standing in the middle of the space. This was originally made as a backdrop for a TV show the artist was planning to create. This is not the only theatrical element of the exhibition ‘Telling A Mind Stop Being A Mind’. It is conceived as a possible encounter of this head with a new video, a new installation and paintings the artist made a few years ago (2007). The display of the sculptural and pictorial elements on the linoleum floor and painted windows create one more layer of image, colour and patterns that could let the main characters of the show emerge. The main characters are two rabbis portrayed in an oil painting; the artist represented in the big face and the artist in dialogue with her friend Alien Christiaens about meditation in the video. The long dialogue of the video is mute and subtitled. Only the countdown from 100 to 1 is audible at the beginning of the video. The image is a progressive mingling of the two faces through a broken mirror. Is everything symbolic in this show? There is a chandelier made out of brooms hanging from the ceiling, holding candles and drippings of wax. Not far away, a lamp stands without its shade, and the bulb (The bulb will be lit) is hanging upside down. These are the elements of the programmatic scene. The muted voices in the video speak about the possibility and benefit of meditation as a loss of oneself by emptying your mind of any thought. What is a thought? Thinking about thinking? exhibition as a place where you can make the void? Waiting for the visitor, we can not stop thinking about the relationship between the rabbis in the paintings and the women in the video. TV and theatre. Sartre and Godot. The lamp, the linoleum floor and the paintings are old-fashioned. The colours are brownish, Bordeaux, beige, and grey. The Bordeaux paint blocks the windows. I can not stop thinking about a theatre piece by Brecht or Sartre: « huis-clos » is a French word used for theatre pieces that can be translated in English as«meeting in camera » or «meeting behind closed doors ». ‘Huis clos’ is also the title of a theatre piece by Sartre that is translated in English as ‘No Exit’ or ‘No Way Out’. It is a depiction of the afterlife in which three deceased characters are punished by being locked in a room together for eternity and is the source of one of Sartre's most famous and most often misinterpreted quotations, l'enfer, c'est les autres ("Hell is other people").
A review about the exhibition in This is Tomorrrow online art magazine:
http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/bat-sheva-ross-telling-a-mind-stop-being-a-mind