EXCESS
images and bodies in times of excess
an exhibition - 12th of February until the 21st of May 2006
Z33, Zuivelmarkt 33, B-3500 Hasselt, www.Z33.be
It's a homeopathic experience - more images to get cured of the existing ones.
It's part of the potlatch- a feast in which images can also be presents (or sacrifices?).
It's a reality check.
The 11th September attacks, live on radio and television; photos of torture in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq worldwide on the web; explosions in London seen immediately on the mobile; nothing happens without there being images of it. We are inundated by them, from the newspapers in the early morning to the late-night news on television. Or is that just how it feels? Are we being blinded by a surfeit of images or a lack of them? Do we see the same images too often and is there a need for greater diversity? Perhaps we have to conclude that there are never enough images for a correct representation of reality.
These questions and others link EXCESS to Jean-Luc Godard's 'Histoire(s) du Cinéma'. This film history, which is also a history of the 20th century, pays as much attention to the films that were not made as to those that were. EXCESS intends to transpose this comprehensive project to the digital era. Which images do we see (or see too much) and which do we not ( or too little)? And another important point: how do we react to these pictures? What feeling arises amongst all these pictures?
A search for the pictures behind the reality isinevitably also about the reality behind the pictures. It is a visual experience, but certainly a physical one too - a confrontation with the pictures and with the body with which we view them. This makes each image different for everybody. In agreement with Godard, we can already conclude that this exhibition will not present the right image, just an image: "pas une image juste, juste une image".
works featured by Sergei Bugacv Afrika, Saed Andoni, Herman Asselbergbs, Heather & Patrick Burnett-Rose, Lieven De Boeck, Harun Farocki & Andrei Ujica, Kendell Geers, Jean-Luc Godard, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Sagi Groner, Thomas Koner, Kuda.org, Teresa Margolies, Renzo Martens, Alice Miceli, Christof Migone, Rob Moonen & Olaf Arndt, Steve Mumford, Els Opsomer, OVNI, Dicrk Schmidt, Ale andcr Sokurov, Terre Tbaeml.itz, Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd, Gcert Van Moorter exhibition design Ann Clicteur curator Pieter Van Bogaert
Felix Gonzalez-Torres (USA) - Untitled (Death by Gun), 1990 stack of photolithographs (courtesy of MoMA, New York)
Listed on the sheets are the names of 460 individuals killed by gunshot during the week of May 1-7, 1989, cited by name, age, city, and state, with a brief description of the circumstances of their deaths, and, in most cases, a photographic image of the deceased. These images and words, appropriated from Time magazine, where they first appeared, reflect Gonzalez-Torres's interest in gun control. Death by Gun is, like so many other works of the artist, an ongoing work of art. Viewer participation is an important element, and the public is encouraged to read the sheets and take them away to keep, display, or give to others.