Places (Gardening 2)
(Maastricht / Avenue Céramique 120)
For Real presents two videos by Hans Op de Beeck (1969 / Belgium): Places (Gardening 2) (2004) in Maastricht and Gardening (2001) in Hasselt.
In Gardening and Places a few minutes seem to last centuries due to the constant changing of imaginary places.
Both animations show the fragility of nature in culture and cultural landscapes. At a rapid pace, landscapes blossom and then fall into decay. Buildings appear in the landscape, fall to ruin and disappear in a continuous cycle. The black and white stories drawn in graphite position the volatility and impossibility of how the modern human believes he is able to relate to space and time.
While Gardening visualises a narrative story, Places is based on a series of pencilled sketches and the images have no real narrative structure. Places presents a constantly changing succession of imaginary places, where the notions of time and volatility are reflected strongly. The exhibition in the public space creates tension because of the huge contract between the fragile and fanciful pencilled and ink story and the stone context in which it is displayed.