Philippe Van Wolputte –
One Thing Leads to Another
Opening: Saturday 20 March, 2021
Exhibition: 20.03.2021 – 09.05.2021
KETELEER
Pourbusstraat 3-5 - 2000 Antwerp
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KETELEER GALLERY is very pleased to present One Thing Leads to Another, a solo exhibition by Philippe Van Wolputte (°1982, Antwerp, BE). The exhibition will consist of an entirely new series of photographic works.
For his second solo exhibition with the gallery, Van Wolputte will show the visual material which led up to the many interventions in public space he created over the last 15 years. Just like with his site-specific interventions, only this time using a two-dimensional carrier, he takes us on a mental journey through deserted, decayed spaces and the thought patterns which accompany them.
Since 2006, Philippe Van Wolputte has been very productive in exploring urban landscapes, staging performances, recording these performances and building installations in various galleries and museums. Prior to his formal education, his focus was already set on what is still the main topic of his artistic explorations: abandoned, forgotten, but most of all devalued urban locations awaiting demolition as they no longer serve a purpose in the current economical/utilitarian hierarchy. Sometimes he reclaims these sites by repurposing them as ‘Temporary Penetrable Exhibition Spaces’ (TPEF), or by marking them with a distinct grid. Other times he re-uses and re-activates these sites by creating his own pathways through what appeared to be nearly fossilized, inert spaces.
By documenting these actions (via photography and video recordings) he takes us on a journey where it is unclear where we are going and what we are looking for and therefore reminds us of the strong associative effect architecture has on us. Crawling through dark corridors, breaking through walls, inhaling the dust of the past, … makes it all very clear, these places haven’t completely died yet. Their silence, on the contrary, bears witness to the innumerable voices of lives and realities passed.
Van Wolputte uses a distinct aesthetic, reminiscent of ‘60s and ‘70s performance pieces, purposely and ironically romanticizing his artistic practices and lending them a, be it constructed, urban melancholia. He never tells the whole story. He won’t give us a clear view of what lies behind his practice and plays a dubious game of uncovering and hiding, colliding the past with the present, claiming no new truths but turning old ones inside out.
