PREVIEW: Philippe Van Snick-Dynamic Project
Philippe Van Snick developed a simple pictorial form of language that is related to minimalism. He relied on binary logic and on patterns in the dynamics of the cosmos and daily reality to develop formulae. Van Snick thus created a decimal system with which he makes the reality around him manageable and which concomitantly forms the core of his palette consisting of ten colors. The artist uses these colors to render observations and feelings in a systematic way.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo S.M.A.K. Archive
“Dynamic Project” is the first major retrospective dedicated to the work of Philippe Van Snick since his death in 2019. The exhibition occupies ten museum galleries of S.M.A.K. Museum as a reference to the decimal system (0-9) that is intrinsic to Van Snick’s wide-ranging oeuvre. Key works are shown alongside surprising, lesser-known ones. The exhibition is conceived as a walk through his work: past his first sculptural analyses of time and space, conceptual photographs, and also short films and paintings. Special attention is paid to Philippe Van Snick’s numerous, permanent and innovative public art projects, while limited-edition editions, magazines and unique documents also feature, the majority of which have never previously been exhibited. Emphasis is also placed on Van Snick’s intimate living environment in Brussels, his garden and home in France, and his lifelong fascination with the beautiful cycles and structures of nature. Van Snick integrated a varying system into his methodology, one that is both mathematical and poetic in nature. As early as the 1970s, he developed his own alphabet consisting of the ten numbers (0-9) and a consistent, clear, ten-color palette. Van Snick created a specific color system by reducing his palette to ten specific colors: the primary colors red, yellow and blue, the secondary colors orange, green and purple, the non-colors white and black (representing the immaterial) and gold and silver (referring to materialism). Later, in 1984, the artist introduced one additional color to his system that now comprised of 10+1 colors. Together with the existing black this newly added light-blue color functions now as a bracket around his color system. Van Snick began to work with the particular duality of the phenomenon “day” and “night” which was symbolically represented by a light blue and a black rectangle. Van Snick likes “flattening” reality, as if to be seen in two-dimensional form and from one perspective. This is perfectly illustrated in the work displayed onto the facade of the gallery, in which the reoccurring theme of Day/Night is implemented. Over the past decades, Van Snick has been producing abstract signs that incorporate his systematic language as a form of communication. The light box presented outside of the gallery juxtaposes the black and light-blue colors with black square and rectangular shapes while leaving gaps between them in order to present the bare structure of the apparatus itself. The artist’s interest in human scale and perception is underlined in his new commissioned work, which responds to the wooden paneling in the gallery. By accentuating the standard formats of some of the wooden planks with basic primary and secondary colors, Van Snick turns the space into a painting in which movement and scale defines its presence. The representation of a system is often one of strict and rigged form, while its subject matter is often an organic one. The depiction of time (the circle) and its movement (the ellipse) is investigated in a new series of diptychs, which portrays the so-called in betweenness, a passage that leads from thing another. Van Snick rationalizes this ‘passage’ by exploring all the variations within his operational system. Van Snick used materials and techniques economically in favor of a concentrated visual language. He observed the complexity of life and the world around him and translated his insights and reflections into simplified images. It is almost impossible to categories his work due to the urge for freedom, openness and non-conformism that it expresses. Philippe Van Snick’s oeuvre shows no abrupt stylistic breaks. It is more a meandering process of reflection in which his intentions become visible. His works are characterized by a personal note, an understated artistic gesture and the echo of vulnerability. He instinctively played with natural elements in his work, which he complemented with geometric interventions.
Photo: Philippe Van Snick, Lingots, 1993, Private Collection, Courtesy Philippe Van Snick Estate
Info: Curators: Marta Mestre and Luk Lambrecht, S.M.A.K. (Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art), Jan Hoetplein 1, Ghent, Belgium, Duration: 22/10/2022-5/3/2023, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 9:30-17:30, Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, https://smak.be/en
