ART-PRESENTATION: Denicolai & Provoost-Hello, Are We In The Show?

Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, Director: Simona Denicolai, Ivo Provoost, Producer: Linda Sterckx, Geert Van Goethem, Writer: Ivo Provoost, Simona Denicolai, Editing: Ewin Ryckaert, Art direction: Ivo Provoost, Simona Denicolai, Sound: Senjan Jansen, Produced by S.O.I.L. - Geert Van Goethem & Linda Sterckx with the support of The Museum of Hunting and Nature, Netwerk, in co-production with S.M.A.K., BPS22, with the support of The Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF), Casa Kafka Pictures Movie Tax Shelter empowered by Belfius; art production funding: Solang ProductionSimona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost are multidisciplinary artists who work with – but not exclusively – animation, objects, installations, performance, video, and publishing. They seek to offer collaborative and procedural approaches, sometimes over the long term, sometimes as a one-off performance, that involve complicity and collaboration with people who are, more often than not, unrelated with the art world.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: S.M.A.K. Archive

To the audience who dares to get involved with the work of Denicolaï & Provoost, a miraculous and rich world of social involvement and personal dedication is opening up; a world that persuades by sensitive straightforwardness.The artists often borrow the elements that are present in a context to combine them, separate them or assemble them together in order to create a language. They work more like intermediaries between the various components of a context to make them interact with each other through their own forms. Their solo exhibition “Hello, Are We In The Show?” provides an extensive overview of Denicolai & Provoost’s work and offers the first museum presentation of their recent animated film “Hello, Are We In The Show?” (2019). The film is a co-production with S.M.A.K. and has been converted into an impressive installation for the occasion. This short 2D animation film takes a look at the daily life of the Soignes forest that lies to the south-east of Brussels. Everything that lives in and around the forest, whether it is plant-matter, industrial, or human is captured in this rich and dynamic animation. By remaining true to the life of the forest, Denicolai and Provoost draw out the visual elements of flora and fauna, and the natural soundscapes are overplayed with the sounds of cars and planes overhead. Through a montage of sequences of observations, the animation questions the relationships of interaction and interference between all living things, including humans. As the artists say “The animation feature consisting of a series of faithfully reproduced nature scenes, as they scan the interaction between the eye-catching parade of the earth’s creatures and the human instinct to process and reconfigure the reality of its riches”.

Their previews works include: “The earthworm” (2001) as a sharp and naive metaphor for the artist and the people in general is thus a reoccurring image in their work. He ‘swallows his context, digests and shits to survive and evolve in his environment…’ Life can be that easy.  That fact that reality is much more complex becomes clear watching their video “To be here (happy)” (2005). In this road-movie a cactus plays the leading part. The artists want to repatriate the houseplant in its native land California and to reconstruct the image of the desert as a cultural black hole like it has been imported via western movies on location, at Death Valley. During the time of recording, the cactus must be replaced by an artificial cactus, whereby the film project remains, however, legal but gets lost in absurdity at the same time. Following an invitation in Ardèche in 2007, Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost conceived “Revolution is not a pique-nique”, a temporary and conceptual project around issues of ownership and use of the natural landscape. By migrating their project to Paris, they extended the history of this work developing the concept of “temporary ownership” into the urban realm Posters for a performance or old drawings from Denicolaï’s academy time which are adapted by the duo form another part of their work. They are a contribution to the discussion about the completed and unique (art)work and the myth of the ‘self-sustaining’ creation. With different interventions Denicolaï & Provoost examine continuously the question of the esthetics of a deduced product. The art of Denicolaï & Provoost may be lacking in clearness and logic but in exchange the artists offer very intimate insights into their world of experience and are questioning the routine of watching art.

Photo: Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, Director: Simona Denicolai, Ivo Provoost, Producer: Linda Sterckx, Geert Van Goethem, Writer: Ivo Provoost, Simona Denicolai, Editing: Ewin Ryckaert, Art direction: Ivo Provoost, Simona Denicolai, Sound: Senjan Jansen, Produced by S.O.I.L. – Geert Van Goethem & Linda Sterckx with the support of The Museum of Hunting and Nature, Netwerk, in co-production with S.M.A.K., BPS22, with the support of The Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF), Casa Kafka Pictures Movie Tax Shelter empowered by Belfius; art production funding: Solang Production

Info: S.M.A.K., Jan Hoetplein 1, Gent, Duration: 13/2-30/5/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 9:30-17:30, Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, https://smak.be

Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, © Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Courtesy the artists and S.M.A.K.
Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, © Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Courtesy the artists and S.M.A.K.

 

 

Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, © Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Courtesy the artists and S.M.A.K.
Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, © Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Courtesy the artists and S.M.A.K.

 

 

Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, © Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Courtesy the artists and S.M.A.K.
Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, © Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Courtesy the artists and S.M.A.K.

 

 

Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, © Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Courtesy the artists and S.M.A.K.
Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, © Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Courtesy the artists and S.M.A.K.

 

 

Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, © Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Courtesy the artists and S.M.A.K.
Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, © Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Courtesy the artists and S.M.A.K.

 

 

Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, © Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Courtesy the artists and S.M.A.K.
Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, © Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Courtesy the artists and S.M.A.K.

 

 

Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, © Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Courtesy the artists and S.M.A.K.
Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Hello, are we in the show ? (Film still), 2019, 2D Animated Film, color, Duration 12’ 16’’, © Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Courtesy the artists and S.M.A.K.