Tuesday 31 July 2007

Ich Habe Einen Vogel

© Eddy Gabriel

A scarecrow with a bird nesting box for a head.
Poetry of the paradox.


First version ( above ) shown at "Pofferd De Nul",Antwerp 1998

© Eddy Gabriel


© Eddy Gabriel



Second version ( above ) with a different coat at the first Freespace in NICC, Antwerp 1999
© Eddy Gabriel


prepatory sketch ( above ) in the small catalogue of the first Freespace in NICC, Antwerp

© eddy gabriel

Epouvantail, Scarecrow, vogelschreck

Wednesday 25 July 2007

Zizi n'est pas une pipe



http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zizi
Marcel Duchamp meets René Magritte.




© eddy gabriel

Robert Indiana In The Temple Of Doom



A wry reply on Robert Indiana's famous "Love" emblem from the 1960's.

I know it's sad.

© eddy Gabriel

Somebody thought to make a quick buck and sell some T-shirts with this design a bit later after publishing this post for the first time, claiming to be "inspired" by the TV-series Lost... Ha!

Tuesday 24 July 2007

Jacob's Ladder - Tempus Arti 2006



© eddy gabriel


With this ladder I was selected as one of the "laureates" of "Tempus Arti" 2006 in Landen, a small town in Belgium.
This 7 meters high sculpture was constructed as a ladder, consisting of separate, stackable elements; i.e. the capital letters "H" and "A", stacked alternately on top of each other.


Climbing it (mentally) and taking more elements, i.e. a "H" or an "A", elongating the ladder as you climb higher, your position becomes more and more unstable as you approach "a state of hybris".
One could read it as a "monument to failure".



After installing it I went to the official opening.  There I got confronted with the catalogue in which the work was described with some quotations from the bible and some more besides-the-point blabber (despite my suggested contribution) and a "romantic photograph" shot at sunset, in which the essential elements of the work, the alternation of red and white elememts, were completely lost, only showing a silhouette, making it seem like an ordinary ladder you probably have somewhere in your own shed.



Some weeks later I received an e-mail from the organizers that the ladder had been "damaged", due to the "poor construction". No further explanation whatsoever. I had this sculptture made by a professional carpenter, a man who knows his business. Anyway, disgusted by the "catalogue event", I figured it best to just forget about this "Tempus Arti" debacle and never even answered the mail.
Sometime later I met a colleague-artist who was also represented in this shambolic affair and he told me he received an unpleasant phone call from the "curator", Dirk Lambrechts, telling him to "clean up his mess". It took a while before he figured out they were refering to "The Ladder" and he could make them clear they were talking to the wrong guy.
My colleague got to know this way the reason for the collapse of the art-work; a bunch of drunken people actually tried to climb it, altough the proportions were designed so as to make this physically nearly impossible.
I never received this explanation from the organisers, possibly due to the fact that they owe me compensation, since they stated beforehand they were insured against damaging of works of art.

Hahaha! Art and laughter. Charles Baudelaire, De l’essence du rire et généralement du comique dans les art plastiques (1868)


Who told you not to believe in fairytales?



© eddy gabriel

Bollard by the river Schelde, painterly transformed to a toadstool, as part of an off-off art exhibition during "Antwerp 1993 - Cultural Capital of Europe".
The outset was to include it in a groupshow of gallery "Si & La", managed by Werner De Vos, but after he learned of my idea he declined and asked me if I wanted to have him jailed...(lol)...So I decided to go on on my own and spray-painted the bollard with the help of fellow artist Fons Brepoels.

A few weeks later most of the bollards in the area were sprayed-painted by many different people, flattering me by copying the idea, but ruining the surreal effect originally intended, as now this toadstool became just one in a long row of painted boulders.