Joost Vandebrug’s work resides at the inter- section of perception and memory, where images remain unresolved and meanings emerge through fragments, repetitions, and gaps. Not Yet the Image invites us into a way of seeing that remains undecided, tentative, and open. The works presented are composed of multiple photographs – at times created through subtle shifts in distance and perspective, and at other times entirely reconstructed or are imagined landscapes, carefully constructed from photographs taken in different locations. Distributed across plates, cards, and various materials, they form visual structures of partial views and interruptions. This fragmented arrangement reflects not only the act of seeing itself, but also the workings of memory – discontinuous, unstable, and perpetually in the process of reconstruction.
In his latest work, Vandebrug examines botanical structures, draws inspiration from Karl Blossfeldt’s systematic plant studies and early photographic experimentation. He thereby engages with the idea of a serial, attentive gaze. Whereas Blossfeldt isolated forms to make them legible, Vandebrug turns toward the in-between, the not-yet named, and that which resists clear definition.
Vandebrug’s botanical works do not aim to define or represent, but to invite rethinking: they are poetic yet precise investigations into how images are perceived, stored, and continually reassembled.
“This series is about seeing for the first time, before the world has settled into clear objects. Each work is built from many photographs made through small shifts in distance and viewpoint. I move through the subject like a puzzle, from corner to corner. The image forms slowly, not as a single capture, but as an accumulation of partial views.”
Joost Vandebrug
By presenting fragments that invoke acts of scrutiny or looking closely, the works offer heightened detail while simultaneously requiring the viewer to recontextualize and mentally (re) assemble the whole.
We look forward to welcoming you to Bildhalle and to sharing an exhibition where seeing becomes an active, reflective, and deliberately incomplete act.