2013/14 - LISTE 18 | The young art fair in Basel

VidalCuglietta0/3/1Galerie VidalCugliettaBarbara CugliettaLilou Vidal5 Bd BarthélémyBE-1000 BrusselsT +32 2 502 53 20M +32 473 36 31 99M +32 488 82 23 73info@vidalcuglietta.comwww.vidalcuglietta.comSolo Show at LISTE:Nel Aerts, 1987, BEOther Artists of the Gallery:Danai Anesiadou, GRWim Catrysse, BEEdith Dekyndt, BECheryl Donegan, USAmy Granat , USJim Lee, USErwan Mahéo, FRMiks Mitrevics, LTMira Sanders, BEEmily Sundblad, USLisa Tan, USZin Taylor, CAJosh Tonsfeldt, USNel AertsPlay do, 2013Acrylic and filler onwood54.5 × 68.5 cm176 / 177Nel Aerts has been developing paintings,installations, videos and performances inwhich the experiment with materials is key.For One with the Medicine Man (2009)she built an improvised screen out of woodand paper during the opening. The super 8film she projected onto it showed how shecreated compositions with wooden shapesin a precarious state of balance. This woodwas then used for Undisclosed Gathering(2010), an interactive exhibition projectwhere a colourful linear composition of 300processed and numbered wooden barsgradually disintegrated and spread amongthe audience.After a return to the atelier and aconfrontation with herself, Aerts startedpainting and created a personal own pictoriallanguage. In her paintings on woodenpanels she makes the surface her own bycreating textures on it (cutting away paintand wood with a chisel, filling it backin and scouring it off again with sandpaper).Both the images she creates in her drawings,collages and paintings as the oftenwitty titles capture our imagination throughtheir simplicity. The lines and oftenbrutal colours render these works poetic,spontaneous, grotesque and absurdat the same time: all qualities that can beassociated with the work of artistslike Jean Brusselmans, René Magritte,Philip Guston or Tal R.The themes which she deals with inher work synthesise her own world and herposition as a young artist within the artscene. The conventional laws of the artworld are for example key in the filmdocumented performance Tribune (2011).Nel Aerts uses a rope to pull a woodenplatform along the Scheldt docks in Antwerpwith a lonely, stiff Pinocchio like puppeton top. The heavy physical effort of the artistcombined with the wooden armless puppeton the platform – any applause is physicallyimpossible – underline the hypotheticaland relative character of whatsuccess can mean for an artist.