Sub.Titled
Sergio De Beukelaer
Sub.Titled
Sergio De Beukelaer
Plus One 13.05.16 - 04.06.16
Exhibition Text For his solo exhibition ‘Sub.Titled’ at PLUS-ONE, Sergio De Beukelaer (BE, °1971) initiated from an homage to Yves Klein, his personal quest for ‘a blue void’ and how to fill it. As a starting point, the ‘blue’ was linked to his girlfriend and muse Marianne Rydberg, and consequently this ‘blue’ — or rather these ‘blues’ — were encoded as Marianne.RydBerg.Blue (MRB.2016). The use of different blue tones alludes to portraits according to the idea of ‘painter and model’ — a classic motif in art, particularly painting — construed in the absolute here and now, built up in a schematic typography as a kind of advertisement (Publicity Abstraction, 2015). The works exhibited serve as an advertisement or propaganda for painting; colours and moods clipped from the ‘Color Field’ paintings of the 1950s and 1960s act as a kind of engine block for his fat.canvas works with their greedy furies of colour and form. The pigmented objects represent boundless exuberance and are usually broken by black and/or white elements as a form of censorship. In a number of works, the artist has consciously opted for ‘anecdote’, ‘subjectivity’, or the importance of ‘detail’. Detail as a ‘fully-fledged image’, arising from a compulsion for classical and historical accuracy. Precision and geometry as a game, leading to the love of love, colour, line, assembly and visual impact.
MRB radiates enthusiasm and is repeatedly ruptured by obese shapes and the colours used. Black and white are the ‘killjoys’ in the game. In certain works, the blues or greens have been deepened to such an extent that they create a ‘black and white’ effect, which is incorporated as a kind of violation. The killjoy does not always win: Sometimes it is the colour that gains the upper hand. This is monochrome painting as conviction and surrender, with pure colour as positive energy. SDB, 2016
“It’s sacred. Hang it high, worship the canvas.”
“Symmetry is the pinnacle of abstraction.”
Letter: to Sergio De Beukelaer In 1947, Henri Matisse wrote the following to Tériade: “Do you not know that if he is truly dedicated, a painter is not a writer? That the best observations he could make, could write, would write, could only be shared with others if he fixed them in lines and colors?”. For some reason I had a volume of the writings of Henri Matisse at hand when I wrote you this letter. If I were an artist, I would follow Henri Matisse’s advice and write to you in lines and colors. But I am only someone who is lucky enough to hang around the artist, like a hyena prowling around an exhausted dying gnu. That is after all what we do: curators, critics, directors, gallery owners, dealers... We tear up, preserve, ennoble, worship the cadaver of art. This metaphor may seem a bit morbid, but still is obvious. The curator holds his exhibition as the critic holds his pen, the museum director has his collection, the gallery owner has his client and the dealer the money. And the artist has art, without which none of the agents above can act. Back to Matisse. 100 years ago he painted The Piano Lesson, now part of the MOMA collection. This work is characterized by clarity, a counterpoint of color fields, painting detached from the reality represented. For some reason, seeing Henri Matisse’s work always makes me happy. To me it has an incredible obviousness, connected to a sense of color and form. Between 1916 and 2016, the art (of painting) has undergone many transformations, and in particular painting has, according to art historians, already been through some palliative treatments. Your work shows little of the apparent death of painting, but rather possesses some of the ‘joie’ of Henri Matisse. A work by Sergio De Beukelaer has the impersonal precision of the lines of a basketball court in a sports hall, the hard-edge feel of Elsworth Kelly, and the abrupt directness of James Rosenquist. Your work speaks in codes. Every canvas/object is a signal, an explicit indication, an exaggeration. At first glance, the works seem suspiciously simple, only later does one notice how notions like abstraction, color, form and language are being ‘reinvented’. Each canvas is swollen and claims the space. The color is alert. What counts is not the nuance of the color, but its function. To me the works feel like pop songs, like a song by Franz Ferdinand. Clear, unpretentious, but full of optimistic ambition. And although your work was made with skill and understanding, it is not painting on painting. It is fundamental, not as painting, but in the experience of viewing. Boem paukeslag et voilà glimlach. Philippe Van Cauteren, Grand Forks, May 22, 2016.
“Color as a readymade.”
“Color as a form.”
Artist Statement Although my work is clean-cut, abstract, geometrical and almost academic,
the reigning realism. My ambition is that from the current time (reality) clean-
it always starts out from a strong desire for ‘reality’ – with all its formal
cut shapes can be distilled which are symbolic of this world. This for me as a
consequences...
painter is an idea of utmost importance...
This urge for reality of course has nothing to do with the pictorial
To put it clearly: because of the visual complexity of many realistic, figurative
‘realism’ which just remains stuck in imitation (mimesis). Such imitation
images, all that remains for me is the possibility and opportunity to construct
is after all dominated by a great lack of ‘imagination’. And the ploy of
geometrical surfaces presented in a sometimes very simple manner. It is a
‘resembling’ is, in my opinion, ‘dead’ and invariably leads to a ‘dead’ image.
craving as an artist (and a human being) for total purity, a sign of surrender and serenity.
If the image produced should nevertheless be very realistic and carry much of this imitation; in it will
This purity can of course also be found in ‘Minimal art’, but in the current context
indisputably lie an approximation, whether subtle or not, of abstraction.
it is not sufficient for an innovating image of spatial painting. One can consider my
It is a matter of making an ‘abstraction’ out of reality, if need be an ‘abstraction from an abstraction’, a transition of pictorial thinking and acting. If this event occurs within the framework of what is supposed to represent a painting, one obtains an exceedingly strong image. All circumstances in ‘contemporary’ art indicate that it is essential to formulate a point of all-embracing ‘abstraction’. No critical objection can hold me back. I do not persevere out of obstinacy but out of sincere astonishment and conviction... Besides ‘color’, white also plays an important role in my work. White is the color of abstraction itself, an objectification of things, or better still, of
approach as a ‘chunk’ of minimal serving as a guidepost, as it were, to ‘more’; an idea of ‘more’ directly linked to my personality and leading to innovation but also to a shift. A shift by way of attracting (philosophical) banality and at the same time ‘originality’ — although it seems to simple to be true. The atmosphere of ‘toys’, ‘playfulness’ and ‘freshness’ can play a crucial part in the development of a new series of works. Essence ultimately does not lead to impoverishment, but on the contrary to a complete description
“Of course my work is about intellectualism, but with freshness.”
MRB.ONE 120 x 130 x 16cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas
2016
MRB.TWO 60 x 145 x 13cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas
2016
HTJE01 42 x 60 x 10cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas
2016
Sub.Titled.Blue 114 x 168 x 23cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas & wood
2016
Sub.Titled.Green 114 x 168 x 23cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas & wood
2016
Sub.Titled.MIKA 114 x 168 x 23cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas & wood
2016
THE.SEQUEL.SEA Ø 110 x 26cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas & wood
2016
MRB.AZUL Ø 80 x 22cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas & wood
2016
MRB.INC 40 x 90,5 x 14cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas & wood
2016
Sub.Titled.One 56 x 87 x 16cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas & wood
2016
MRB.ONE (model) 37 x 49,5 x 5cm Mixed techniques, acrylic & flashe 2016
MRB.TWO (model) 37 x 49,5 x 5cm Mixed techniques, acrylic & flashe 2016
HTJE01 (model) 37 x 49,5 x 5cm Mixed techniques, acrylic & flashe 2016
Exhibition views Sub.Titled
Subway Ø 110 x 16cm Acrylic on wood & mixed media
2013
Soft Quote Ø 140 x 17,5cm Acrylic on fat.canvas & wood
2013
Sense Unique 124 x 115 x 15cm Acrylic on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2013
Pause 140 x 140 x 16cm Acrylic on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2013
Towel 124 x 115 x 15cm Acrylic on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2013
Frame 140 x 140 x 21,5cm Gesso & acrylic on fat.canvas & wood
2013
THE.BIG.BLUE 146 x 164 x 14cm Acrylic on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2014
NEO.N 123 x 141 x 10cm Acrylic on linen & wood
2015
BLACK’N’BLUE Ø 102 x 12cm Acrylic on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2015
PINA.COLADA 116 x 130 x 11cm Gesso & flashe on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2015
OPEN.WHITE Ø 127 x 15cm Gesso & Acrylic on fat.canvas
2015
HTSL01 130 x 146 x 13cm Gesso & acrylic on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2015
Sub.Titled. MIKA (2016) When asked to make an installation in the outside bar, it soon became clear
In the background, a cut-out abstract landscape is located, i.e.: the air is
that the surroundings of the Middelheim would appear as a kind of found image,
being plucked and pasted like a collage. Strongly accentuated black beams break
ready-made and — by extension — a trompe-l’oeil.
and reinforce the overall image. The park has in its entirety pervaded the MIKA.
The first striking eye-catcher is the
All of these abstracted colours originate
bar counter allowing the first part of the open-air museum to shine. The bar
in a hyper realistic context. The air is coded light blue (SDB2) as the most
counter will in a synthesized way surely draw attention because of its simplicity
beautiful sculpture of the domain and is supported by the three-coloured base
and rhythm.
(the bar counter).
The lines of colour are broad to such an extent that an oblong surface is created. The surfaces provide a platform to summarize the present image and as it were cast the colours in an optic horizontal play. The verdant surroundings here are the largest available base. At the aligned bar, the idea of a subtitle emerges.
“The entire Middelheimmuseum has invaded the Museumcafé.”
Biography The work of Sergio De Beukelaer (°1971, Deurne) looks simple but combines a variety of paradoxes. For example, De Beukelaer uses numerous codes of post-modernistic art from the 1960s and 1970s, such as abstraction, geometry, monochrome and the “hard edge” technique. However, he does so with an irony and playfulness that cannot be reconciled with the attitude of minimalists and fundamental painters. As part of this eclectic approach, classical-modern boundaries are pushed back, without there being any “post-modern” criticism of his predecessors from minimal-, pop-, op-, and concept art. Apparent contrasts — such as figuration and abstraction — flat and spatial, word and image, painting and sculpture, both contaminate and fertilise one another. In the concept of the “fat.canvas”, a three-dimensional painting, the artist leaves the field of classical painting and conquers the painting the space. The shapes, colours and dimensions of De Beukelaer’s works are tempting, but behind the power of these compact images, a surprising impact lurks on closer inspection. Johan Pas
Solo Exhibitions 2016
‘Sub.Titled’ PLUS-ONE - Antwerp - Belgium
2015
‘THE.SEQUEL’ Galerie Annie Gentils - Antwerp - Belgium
2013
‘The.Target.Series’ Galerie Ronny Van de Velde - Knokke - Belgium
2008
‘Sergio De Beukelaer: Format’ Galeria Ramis Barquet - New York (NY) - USA
2007
‘Sergio De Beukelaer’ Sint-Blasiusziekenhuis - Dendermonde - Belgium
2006
‘Sergio De Beukelaer: Watch More Canvas’ ABA Art - Palma - Spain
2004
‘Sergio De Beukelaer: Roomservice’ Galeria Ramis Barquet - New York (NY) - USA
2004
‘Sergio De Beukelaer’ ARCO - Madrid - Spain
2003
‘Sergio De Beukelaer: Processing’ Tim Van Laere Gallery - Antwerp - Belgium
2001
‘Sergio De Beukelaer: At Random’ Provinciaal Centrum voor Beeldende Kunsten Begijnhof - Hasselt - Belgium
2001
‘Sergio De Beukelaer: Space Location 2001’ Van Laere Contemporary Art - Antwerp - Belgium
2000
‘Sergio De Beukelaer: Oil On Fat.canvas - Objects & Drawings’ Tim Van Laere Gallery - Antwerp - Belgium
Group Exhibitions 2009
‘Objectschilderijen’, Roger Raveel Museum, Machelen-aan-de-Leie (Belgium) ‘Works On Paper’, Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp (Belgium)
2008
‘Pop-Eye’, Oude Gevangenis [Old Jail], Hasselt (Belgium)
2007
‘Getekend’, Municipal Academy of Sint-Niklaas, Sint-Niklaas (Belgium)
2006
‘Sergio De Beukelaer - Peter De Cupere - Maryam Najd’, Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp (Belgium) ARCO (Tim Van Laere Gallery), Madrid (Spain)
2005
ARCO (Tim Van Laere Gallery & Galeria Ramis Barquet), Madrid (Spain) ‘Metamorphosis II’, Musei Civici de San Gimignano, San Gimignano (Italy) ‘Hit you with a flower’, Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerpen (Belgium) FIAC (Tim Van Laere Gallery), Parijs (France) Art Basel Miami Beach (Galeria Ramis Barquet), Miami (USA)
2004
‘Metarmorphosis II’, CC de Werft, Geel (Belgium) ‘Metarmorphosis II’, Abello Museum, Mollet del Vallès (Barcelona) (Spain) Art Basel Miami Beach (Galeria Ramis Barquet), Miami (USA)
2003
‘Synesthetics’, De Garage, Mechelen (Belgium) Art Brussels (Van Laere Contemporary Art), Brussel (Belgium) ‘Don’t think twice, it’s all right’, Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerpen (Belgium) ‘Metamorphosis II’, L.A.C., Perpignan (France) ‘Once upon a time...’, (curated by Guillaume Bijl & Bart De Baere) MuHKA, Antwerpen (Belgium)
2002
Art Brussels (Van Laere Contemporary Art), Brussel (Belgium) Art Cologne (Van Laere Contemporary Art), Keulen (Germany) ‘Sergio De Beukelaer, Peter De Cupere, Hans Op de Beeck en Koen van den Broek’, Palace of Justice, Antwerpen (Belgium)
2001
‘C’est beau, c’est Belge’, Barbara Farber/La Serre, Trets (France) Art Brussels (Van Laere Contemporary Art), Brussel (Belgium) ‘In the summertime’, Van Laere Contemporary Art, Antwerpen (Belgium) Art Cologne (Van Laere Contemporary Art), Keulen (Germany)
2000
‘La Conscience du Monde. 3e Biennale de Louvain-la-Neuve’, (curator Philippe Braem) Louvain-La-Neuve (Belgium) ‘Kinderspel’, Communal Academy of Waarschoot, Waarschoot (Belgium)
1999
‘TroubleSpot.Painting’, (curated by Luc Tuymans & Narcisse Tordoir) MuHKA-NICC, Antwerp (Belgium) ‘Dépôt’, (curator Philippe Braem) Tour & Taxis, Brussels (Belgium) ‘Young @ all ages’, Deweer Art Gallery, Otegem (Belgium)
Index Sub.titled
MRB.ONE 120 x 130 x 16cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas
2016
MRB.TWO 60 x 145 x 13cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas
2016
HTJE01 42 x 60 x 10cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas
2016
Sub.Titled.Blue 114 x 168 x 23cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas & wood
2016
Sub.Titled.Green 114 x 168 x 23cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas & wood
2016
Sub.Titled.MIKA 114 x 168 x 23cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas & wood
2016
THE.SEQUEL.SEA Ø 110 x 26cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas & wood
2016
MRB.AZUL Ø 80 x 22cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas & wood
2016
MRB.INC 40 x 90,5 x 14cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas & wood
2016
Sub.Titled.One 56 x 87 x 16cm Flashe & pigment on fat.canvas & wood
2016
Index The.Sequel
NEO.N 123 x 141 x 10cm Acrylic on linen & wood
2015
BLACK’N’BLUE Ø 102 x 12cm Acrylic on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2015
PINA.COLADA 116 x 130 x 11cm Gesso & flashe on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2015
OPEN.WHITE Ø 127 x 15cm Gesso & Acrylic on fat.canvas
2015
HTSL01 130 x 146 x 13cm Gesso & acrylic on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2015
OPEN.BLUE Ø 124 x 14cm Acrylic & flashe on fat.canvas
2015
POWER.PINK 146 x 146 x 14cm Acrylic & flashe on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2015
INTO.THE.BLUE 140 x 140 x 12cm Acrylic & flashe on fat.canvas & wood
2015
THE.BIG.BLUE 146 x 164 x 14cm Acrylic on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2014
HTJB01 157 x 136 x 14cm Acrylic on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2015
Index The.Target.Series
Sense Unique 124 x 115 x 15cm Acrylic on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2013
Pause 140 x 140 x 16cm Acrylic on fat.canvas & flat.canvas
2013
Subway Ø 110 x 16cm Acrylic on wood & mixed media
2013
Soft Quote Ø 140 x 17,5cm Acrylic on fat.canvas & wood
2013
Towel 124 x 115 x 15cm Acrylic on fat.canvas & wood
2013
Frame 140 x 140 x 21,5cm Gesso & acrylic on fat.canvas & wood
2013
Blink Ø 140 x 18cm Acrylic & flashe on fat.canvas & wood
2013
Quote 140 x 140 x 14cm Acrylic & flashe on fat.canvas
2013
BB Ø 140 x 22cm Acrylic & flashe on fat.canvas
2013
NYI Ø 140 x 13cm Acrylic on fat.canvas
2013
NYII Ø 140 x 14cm Acrylic on fat.canvas
2013
Studio Ø 140 x 11cm Acrylic & flashe on canvas & wood
2013
Colophon Artworks Sergio De Beukelaer Text Sergio De Beukelaer Philippe Van Cauteren Jason Poirier dit Caulier Photography Plus One Gallery & Mirror Mirror Graphic Design Mirror Mirror Plus One Gallery Sint-Hubertusstraat 58+ 2600 Berchem - Belgium www.plus-one.be @plus_one_art
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