01 february 2022, Wouter van den Eijkel
Whispered Statements | Literally – Scheltens & Abbenes at The Ravestijn Gallery
The Ravestijn Gallery is currently showing Literally, the new solo exhibition by the renowned Dutch photography duo Scheltens & Abbenes. The focus is on four life-size still lifes of carpets treated with soapy water.
Maurice Scheltens (1972) and Liesbeth Abbenes (1970) often mislead the viewer with their stylized still lifes. By playing with two- and three-dimensionality, you as a viewer automatically take a better look – even at something as mundane as a carpet. The couple's artistic collaboration dates back to 2002. Initially, they each worked under their own name, but since 2012 they have only appeared as a duo. Over the years they developed a very recognizable style together. This enabled them to build up a large international clientele. They have worked for major fashion houses such as Maison Martin Margiela, Hermès and Paco Rabane, but also for well-known designers such as Muller van Severen and Scholten and Baijings and for magazines such as The Gentlewoman and Fantastic Man.
Scheltens & Abbenes, The Rug, Whiff #3 (MacGuffin Magazine), 2021, The Ravestijn Gallery.
The current show, entitled Literally, was preceded by a commission from MacGuffin’s magazine. The assignment was simple: a stain on a rug. For Scheltens and Abbenes, such a briefing is an invitation to push the boundaries. That didn't take much this time around, as the duo are known for their controlled, clean aesthetic. They decided to take the assignment literally and do what anyone would do with a stained rug: clean it.
They borrowed fifteen rugs from local thrift stores with the promise of returning them clean. In their studio in Amsterdam-Noord they had built a tarpaulin basin, allowing them to experiment with water and soapy water. In addition, the patterns of the carpets formed the surface that plays with the suds, creating new patterns. A kind of painting with suds captured with the camera.
Scheltens & Abbenes, The Rug, Whiff #6 (MacGuffin Magazine), 2021, The Ravestijn Gallery.
The play with two- and three-dimensionality can be found throughout the oeuvre of Scheltens & Abbenes. At first it is alienating for the viewer. You let go of your expectations, as it were, which creates the opportunity to get re-acquainted with everyday objects such as a carpet. After all, everyone knows what a carpet looks like, but no carpet looks like one of the Rugs by Scheltens and Abbenes.
While pleased with the photos in MacGuffin, the duo felt that this series would work well in a different context as well. While the three-dimensionality of objects is lost in a magazine, you can restore it in a gallery exhibition. The carpets were therefore printed life-size for the show at The Ravestijn Gallery and placed in a slightly too narrow plexiglass frame boxes, so that they curl up at the bottom, as carpets do in reality. In this way, the carpets can not only be seen in full size, but they have also regained their three-dimensionality.
Reproducing one's own work is therefore the theme of Literally: all objects photographed in the presentation are returned to their three-dimensional origin. The still life A Stack of Coats, originally commissioned by The Fantastic Man (2018), shows sixteen coats stacked with great precision. At The Ravestijn, the coats become a physical stack again; only this time as a stack of posters.
Scheltens & Abbenes, Stacked, Sixteen Coats (Fantastic Man magazine), 2018, The Ravestijn Gallery.
The recycling of work is done most literally in a series about clothing donated to charity that the duo made for the Dutch weekly Vrij Nederland in 2013. All collected scarves are thrown together in a bin during sorting. The speed of that action is reflected in the double shots. For Literally, Scheltens & Abbenenes decided to print the photos on voile, and to execute them in textiles reminiscent of scarves.
By turning a photo of textiles into textile object Scheltens and Abbenes have come full circle in a rather subtle way. “We have to be careful not to make it too subtle or we'll be the only ones to understand it. They are a kind of whispered statements”.
Scheltens & Abbenes, Worn and Discarded #3 (Vrij Nederland Magazine), 2013, The Ravestijn Gallery.
Literally by Scheltens & Abbenes can be seen until 5 March at The Ravestijn Gallery in Amsterdam.
