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Flor Linckens
Groundbreaking portraits
Portraits have been around for as long as art itself and will always have a place in the art world. But can a portrait also provide more justice, or more awareness about the climate? What does a portrait through the eyes of artificial intelligence look like? And can a portrait ‘rectify’ history? In this collection, you see see five works by artists who have shaped portraiture in a remarkable way.
Renzo Martens
3 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 3 Oeuvres disponibles
0 Spectacles ᛫ 1 Points forts ᛫ 2 Recommandations
Renzo Martens has committed himself towards better working and living conditions in Africa. In his documentary Enjoy Poverty, he argues that poverty is the continent's greatest export product. But at the same time, it strikes him how the documentary, paradoxically enough, yielded more for the West - where they wrote theses about it or devised university courses on it - than for Africa itself. That is why in 2010, Martens founded the Insititute for Human Activities in Boteka in Congo, where he invites local plantation workers to make art. Most famous are the self-portraits of river clay, which are then digitised with 3D scanners and executed in a mold. In Amsterdam, these casts become sculptures. He does not use clay for the end result, but rather the iconic product of the local plantations in Congo: chocolate. The sculptures are shown in galleries and museums (including the LAM Lisse and the Van Abbemuseum) and the proceeds then go back to the makers. This yields them 7000% more per gram than what they would normally earn per gram of chocolate.
(Galerie Fons Welters)
(Galerie Fons Welters)
2 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 15 Oeuvres disponibles
4 Spectacles ᛫ 0 Points forts ᛫ 0 Recommandations
The original inhabitants of Australia have always fiercely opposed the medium of photography. The Aboriginals believe that by taking a picture, you effectively steal their soul and that depicting sacred places and the dead is a matter of disrespect towards their ancestors. Historically, colonial rulers have had little respect for this, as evidenced by the many photos that were taken of them. British photographer and artist Patrick Waterhouse offered this group new agency, a group that, for a long time, lacked any influence on how they were represented. Waterhouse made his Restricted Images series in collaboration with the Warlpiri people of Central Australia, over a five-year period. He printed the photos in England and returned to Australia to "restrict" the images, with the help of local artists, using traditional techniques. By collaborating with them, they achieve a result that everyone is satisfied with. Waterhouse is intrigued by the way our understanding of the past is constantly changing, because in the end, history is always a construct, always supplemented with new knowledge and perspectives.
(The Ravestijn Gallery)
(The Ravestijn Gallery)
3 Éléments multimédias ᛫ 40 Oeuvres disponibles
8 Spectacles ᛫ 0 Points forts ᛫ 0 Recommandations
A portrait is essentially a physical manifestation of a memory, but scientific research shows that our brain also manufactures memories. As a result, we can sometimes vividly remember events that never actually happened. The German artist Daniela Schwabe applies a similar manipulation to her work. Together with designer Casper Schipper, she developed a so-called neural network, which they trained on the basis of her personal family archive. The algorithm interprets the photos and basically learns what a portrait is. That process starts with entering formal photos, then adding photos that are more difficult to interpret, such as vacation photos and more mundane, everyday images. This sets a process in motion in which artificial intelligence develops on the basis of learning, remembering and expanding. When that process is complete, the algorithm can generate new faces on its own, based on experience and memory — but only based on her personal family portraits. Schwabe then paints these representations with the slowest medium there is: painting.
(galerie dudokdegroot)
(galerie dudokdegroot)