MuseoMag: MuseoMag 2022_04

MuseoMag 2022_04

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Title:: MuseoMag

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Title:: MuseoMag 2022_04

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Title:: Erwin Olaf and Hans Op de Beeck: Inspired by Steichen: Nature as a source of inspiration

11 04 ‘ 2022 museomag that we, humanity, are committing enormous exploita- tion of nature, without considering the consequences for our own survival. But above all, the indifference of nature and its silent overwhelming power made a huge impression on me. […] It was then that I realized I had a subject for a new series of photography. After the series Palm Springs, partly photographed outdoors, I felt the need to make a new start and to leave all “time travel” and decoration behind, with a subject that plays in the here and now and in which design by the human beings would not play any role. The indifferent power of nature, the human arrogance towards that same nature and the endless need for displacements, with the enormous consequences thereof, have become the theme for the series Im Wald.” Hans Op de Beeck, born in Turnhout, Belgium, and living in Brussels, works with almost all available artis- tic media. In his sculptures or expansive installations, his large-format watercolours or videos and animated films, he uses the staging strategies of theatre, film and architecture to create atmospherically dense, dream- like images that seem familiar and yet alien. Op de Beeck spent more than ten years working on a series of large, monochrome watercolours which he paints at night. The original works measure from 2.5 to 5 metres across and deal with both classical and contemporary themes. In many cases they are poetic scenes depic- ting mysterious night-time locations, sometimes popu- lated by anonymous people. As in his entire œuvre, the mood of the image is the prominent feature. This is also true for his sculptures, which are generally pre- sented in monochrome environments set in grey: a sleeping girl on a raft floating in the water, or a couple of young lovers sitting together on a cliff. Art and the everyday blur into one another; real-looking people and objects mutate into sculptures in a monochrome world where life seems to have come to a standstill. NEW COLLABORATIONS The idea for a collaboration with Erwin Olaf initially came up in Bruges, where I worked for several years as chief curator of the Memling Museum. I invited Erwin there to visit the exhibition William Kentridge: Smoke, Ashes, Fable (2017/2018), hoping to interest him in presenting a similar future project at the museum. Since I started working in Luxembourg shortly after- wards, the project didn’t happen. However, Olaf took the initiative to re-establish contact with me at the MNHA, an institution he knew well since he had shown a work there during a group presentation organised for EMOP in 2015, which was subsequently purchased TEMPORARY EXHIBITION by the museum. The renewed discussion and changed location led to fresh ideas. Erwin had just started photographing outside his studio for the first time and was working on the series Im Wald (2020) that reminded me of Steichen’s landscape photographs. At the same time, the monumental landscapes in watercolour by Hans Op de Beeck came to mind, which, however impressive, have not yet been shown extensively in public institutions. A new phase in Erwin Olaf’s photographic œuvre, Hans Op de Beeck’s relatively unknown watercolour drawings and recent sculptures, combined with a small group of landscape photographs by Steichen, seemed to offer exciting material for an exhibition. The idea appealed to Olaf and Op de Beeck, who had never met before, but admired each other’s work and Steichen’s photo- graphy. Their first ever collaboration will now take place in the Salle Wiltheim of the MNHA, from 16 December 2022 until 11 June 2023. The exhibition will comprise some 37 photographs, large watercolours, sculptures, installations and videos by Olaf and Op de Beeck. They present surprising links with Steichen’s landscape photography while at the same time allowing us to re- visit the Luxembourgish photographer’s familiar œuvre with fresh eyes. Although very different, the three artists come to- gether like virtuoso musicians, creating a new harmony, a richly variegated presentation of imagery in black, white and grey tones that is strikingly unified and self- evident. As an enticing encore, Olaf and Op de Beeck have also agreed to serve as guest curators for another presentation at the MNHA: in the course of the coming weeks they will select 20 original photographs by Edward Steichen from the museum’s extensive holdings, to be displayed in our Steichen Cabinet in the first half of 2023. Ruud Priem Edward Steichen (1879-1973), Moonrise – Mamaroneck, New York, 1904. Photograph. Collection MNHA.

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