jonas vansteenkiste

Housetrap drawings

2012-01-03T07:32:00.000-08:00

Front (Veerle Michiels & Jonas Vansteenkiste

2011-11-07T02:27:00.000-08:00

Bunkers are a ghostly reminder of destruction and oppression but the idea of home slumbers in this symbol of protection.
(scale model 'front' at Fotorama http://www.fotorama.be/start_nl.htm )

"The way you once left me"

2011-06-21T04:14:00.001-07:00

Het werk van Jonas Vansteenkiste (26 jaar, Hulste) wordt getypeerd door ruimtes. Met installaties, video’s, foto’s en tekeningen bouwt hij eigen ruimtes die hij ‘mental spaces’ noemt. Hij streeft naar interactie met zijn publiek: hij nodigt hen uit tot een fysieke en mentale deelname aan zijn werk, en speelt hierbij met ruimtelijke spanning

en.

“‘Mental Spaces’ is een zware term. Het duidt op ruimtes waarbij ervaringen binnenìn de ruimte een grotere rol spelen dan louter de architecturale fragmenten. Een ruimte kan verlangens opwekken. Ik zie mijn ruimtes als gedeeld goed waarin verhalen, herinneringen en gedachten kunnen samenvallen. Ieder kan er zijn eigen ideeën in projecteren. Zo heeft iedereen een eigen, persoonlijke ruimte-ervaring. Al van bij de geboorte is die aanwezig. Dit is een belangrijk thema in de ontwikkelingspsychologie, en een inspiratiebron voor mijn werk.”

“Mijn werk wordt geëxposeerd op het Sint-Maartensplein. Ik vind het een fantastische plek, omdat het zich onttrekt van de drukte van de stad. Er is een sfeer van rust die me aantrekt. Op het plein ga ik fragmenten van huizen in de bomen aanbrengen. Brokstukken, delen van afgebladerde, witte, Amerikaanse huizen. Ze kunnen refereren naar kapotte boomhutten, maar ook naar natuurrampen, vernietiging, verlies. Wat de interpretatie is laat ik open voor de toeschouwer.”

“Ik werk het liefst met installaties. Ik wil een fysieke, reële verhouding tussen mijn werk en het publiek. Mensen vullen de ruimtes met hun eigen achtergrond. Die spanning interesseert me. Voor deze expo is er een andere vorm van interactie: de installaties zitten hoog in de bomen, er is dus meer afstand. Het kijken van beneden naar boven vraagt een concentratie van de kijker. Je moet je verplaatsen, je kan niet alles in één keer zien. De toeschouwer wordt tot stilstand gedwongen. Zo wordt het werk mind

er vluchtig.”

“In Amerika was het vroeger de gewoonte kaarsen te branden voor de ramen, om de reizigers terug naar huis toe te leiden. Wanneer de avond valt wil ik ook zo’n lichtpunten in mijn stukken huis. Bakens van licht. Het ademt melancholie, mysterie, verlangen.

tekst : Astrid Haerens

Structure verte & dune noir

2011-03-31T14:30:00.000-07:00

Vrijstaat.O & Mu.Zee ontwikkelden in het kader van "Mars op Oostende"(een Ensoriaanse parade) een vlaggenproject en nodigden 100 kunstenaars uit om een vlag te ontwerpen met als centraal gegeven de kunstenaar James Ensor.

Vansteenkiste zijn vlag, "Structure verte & dune noir" vertrekt vanuit de visie dat iemand zijn huis een tweede huid is en zo onbewust invloed heeft op de persoon zelf.

In deze vlag verwijst 'stucture vert' dan ook naar het huis van Ensor in de Vlaanderenstraat te Oostende, opvallend aan het huis is de Groene gevel dat Vansteenkiste subtiel verwerkt in de structuur dat refereert aan een huis.

'Dune Noir' verwijst op zijn beurt naar een werk van James Ensor en krijgt vorm op de vlag als een stuk gedrapeerde stof dat door zijn volume en spel met licht verscheidene gradaties van zwart gaat vertonen.

Chapel

2010-12-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

For the installation:'Chapel'
Vansteenkiste started from the bleu-print of the Counts Chapel in Kortrijk
(where the work was shown).
As a whole it clearly refers to his inspiration and is imadiatly seen as an architypical churchbuilding.
The architecture is reduced to an open structure with milky white walls that licht up from within. 'Chapel' is in that way a work in which each of us can project their own beliefs and expectations.

a space of confinement

2010-10-22T01:09:00.001-07:00

In 'A space of confinement' Vansteenkiste first starts from the gallery space in Kortrijk, which he associative links to the Hitchcock movie:'The Birds'. This is the second starting point for this work.
Vansteenkiste is fascinated by the concept of home and architectural fragments as windows, doors, corridors, stairs, ... Like one of his great examples of the Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock. Both see it as a dubbel facet of the house, on one side a safe environment but is also a place that could turn against the people and become a 'prison'.

Cofinement (the state of being confined) means including detention, house arrest or in the broader sence fixed in a place. This aspect is of course reflected in 'The Birds' the town houses are under siege from the birds without a viable reason appears that al logic seems lost.

For Melanie, Mitch and the other characters the house seems a save heaven that wil protect them from attacks, but this space is also their fragile wooden prison. To Confine ... means to entrust something to someone or something. The duality of the title here is thus a very conscious factor.

foto by SteytPeña, Luis Peña

The action of Mitch Brenner who breaksup the shed and geaters wood to close every window of his home hermetically fascinates Vansteenkiste, this action he interprets as a harbinger of an intense period of introspection and social tension between the people who undergo this situation.

During the making of 'a space of confinement'remained the question be repeated,' how did Melanie feel?'
This fact is central, the atmosphere of the film leaves the screen and we take on the role of Melanie in this installation.

Sensitive skin

2010-04-02T02:44:00.000-07:00

In the video "Sensitive Skin"
The viewer is invited to do more than just watching.
The work creates its own universe, one that neither time nor space seem to have a grip on.
The video doesn't give a narrative context,
but we are seduced by an image in the color of embroidery nut, a frail hand, a white curtain and a white wall.
A subtle reference to a pre-Raphaelite tradition is made, this work lives on the fading boundary between painting and video installation, and through which the fragility of the image suggests an underlying story.
That this is anything but free of conotations, this muted picture speaks:
with transparency and clarity, with wind and color, and the tension between movement and stasis, between disclosure and suggestion.

(Text Windey Cin)

House of Leaves

2010-04-02T02:33:00.000-07:00

In this project, the book House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski stands central. The novel in question is a truly fascinating object for those interested in the endless dialogue between literature and visual arts. House of Leaves is the kind of novel that classical narrative strategies is neglected, and exchanges them for a Maze like structure,
an almost impenetrable tangle of stories in an experimentel design.
Each story is embedded in a layer by another layer, like a Chinese box or a Russian matryoshka-doll.

What we finally get to read is
1) a journal report,
2) an academic writing about,
3) a documentary film of,
4) a mysterious house in an unspecified but very Arcadian-style spot in North America. A house, it seems, constantly mutates, noises, and appears larger on the inside than on the outside and it even disolves some protagonists.

The book has a certain cult value, but cast in a compelling combination of form and content innovation, and an intelligent meta-view of the postmodern (or 'pomo'tradition)

which it manifests itself.

The book stands with one foot in the canon, but also parasite latched onto the popular reading culture, it incorporates the latest insights from the literature theoretical paradigms of the past decades and delivers it at the same time a parodic commentary on it.

In all this sounds a clear form experimental trend that the act of reading itself as a central problem. With its experimental form and structure, are often cryptic in content and style aphasic moments, does the novel itself as a labyrinthic space, which threatens thar reading wil be hopelessly stuck. The novel is thus removes the idea that reading is intended to be equivalent to laying puzzle pieces were issued in terms of a clearly defined whole: it is for the reader to do an effort to understand the work, an effort that should immediately frustrating because postmodern novels often barren and illusory order of reality will puncture and an elusive network of images have surfaced. In other words, the reader gets the impression that perhaps something could unravel, but eventually his efforts wil lead nowhere:

there is no treasure at the bottom of the pit that await him, because the wealth lies in the fall and the waiving of the desire for a bottom, an ultimate ground. It(s a metaphor in the novel literally symbolized through the labyrinthine house which narrates the novel. With that, Danielewski's novel is a continuation of authors like Borges, Sterne, and Joyce Perec - references in the work of Jonas Vansteenkiste might present through sideroads and detours ...

What Jonas Vansteenkiste in his version of House of Leaves brings about, may be called truly a titanic effort. He cutted all the sentences from the voluminous novel to re-combine into the walls of a house that the labyrinthine structures echoes the novel. The text fragments that are not used in this construction, resonate on there turn with the many 'residual groups' in which the novel can be found in the form of footnotes, loose notes and other addenda, but especially like the added log reports of the 'explorations' in the house.

The result is quite fascinating. By using the fragments of the text to make an architectural structure, creates a compelling dynamic between original and new creation, the original text finally became inaccessible. The original book has become a ruin of text, a book full of holes and perforations whit a stray letter here and there.

Moreover, the new constellation, all white space between the words disappeared and the reader is reading in different directions at once sent. In both cases, the reading again forced to bite its tail. The 'openness' that suggests the work initially (because the audience gets a glimpse into the internal structure of the Maze) appears on closer inspection a claustrophobic kind of network, without the input and output and almost no breathing room. It looks like an ode to the eternal lost.

photo's by Johan Delcour

(text by Cin Windey)

Literature Scientist Cin Windey studying literary texts, their status as objects and their negative space awareness, and the reader will notify: through their theme or motive force, or by the fact that they are the negative space in some way and enable their narrative strategy. In particular, the second category of texts that exceed the limit more than once to the visual arts ... and just at that border transfer is a huge space for reflection on space, mental spaces, non-lieus, the uncanny, and anarchitecture and void. )

I'll be your mirror

2010-03-13T14:23:00.000-08:00

I’ll be your mirror (2003), een performative installation die expliciet refereert aan de roman ‘Le Rouge et le Noir’ van de Franse naturalist Stendhal, viel mij in eerste instantie vooral op hoe het werk erin slaagt het publiek nadrukkelijk op zichzelf terug te werpen. Dat zoiets al eens confronterend kan zijn, bewijst de passage uit de roman waarop Jonas zich inspireerde. Stendhal schrijft:“Eh, monsieur, un roman est un miroir qui se promène sur une grande route. Tantôt il reflète à vos yeux l’azur des cieux, tantôt la fange des bourbiers de la route. Et l’homme qui porte le miroir dans sa hotte sera par vous accuse d’être immoral! Son miroir montre la fange, et vous accusez le miroir! “

Vrij vertaald:
“Wel, meneer, een roman is een spiegel die een lange wandeling maakt. Nu eens weerspiegelt hij het azuurblauw van de hemelen, dan weer reflecteert hij de modderpoelen op de weg. En de man met die spiegel in zijn draagkorf wordt ervan beschuldigd immoreel te zijn. Zijn spiegel reflecteert de modder, en u beschuldigt de spiegel”.

@ M HKA near the work of Jan Fabre & Marina Abramovic,photo by Yves Jansen

Het is opmerkelijk om vast te stellen hoe dit citaat gelijk strookt met wat Jonas mij vertelde over de reacties die het werk soms losweekt: mensen die hun best doen om steeds buiten het bereik van de spiegel te blijven, geïrriteerd raken door de confrontatie met hun eigen weerspiegeling, zich ongemakkelijk voelen, het gevoel krijgen dat ze ‘in’ het werk werden gedwongen en er zich zo snel mogelijk weer aan proberen te onttrekken.Die verbluffende uitwerking zegt niet alleen iets over de dynamiek en de zeggingskracht van het – uiteindelijk visueel vrij eenvoudige – werk, maar zet vooral ook een verraderlijk spel van zelfbespiegeling, van woord en wederwoord en van letterlijke ‘deelname’ in werking: de spiegel kan de geïrriteerde blik van een kijker opvangen, maar kaatst hem onmiddellijk ook netjes terug naar de zender – die vervolgens zichzelf boos in de ogen staat te kijken. Dat maakt van dit werk tegelijk een heerlijk gemeen truukje als een pertinente vraagstelling over thema’s als zelfbeeld, participatie, en de driehoeksrelatie tussen maker, kijker en kunstwerk.

(Tekst Cin Windey)
( a Special thanks to Simon Vanheukelom, performer)

@ M HKA Antwerpen naast "Oh" van Anouk De Clercq photo by Jonas Vansteenkiste

THE SWAN SONG OF PARKING PALACE

2010-01-25T17:15:00.000-08:00

Everyone lays ‘a first stone’ from time to time, but none reflects at the stones which had to make way.

The main theme in The Swan Song of Parking Place is the farewell to a building which was a part of the Kortrijk cityscape for years. It’s not only a farewall but also a reference to things to come.

We wanted the building to speak for itself, and why not… let it sing as well.

A swan-song, a number brought by a performer before disappearing from the stage.

We soon found a connection with Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”, which lyrics ooze a similar context and vibe. The song was noted in the charts about the same time the Parking Palace was built. We soon started indentifying the parking with the lyrics main personage.

A character at the end of his life, looking back, regretting certain things he’s done, mistakes he’s made… but above alle realizes all those things made him into a unique person.

The same applies to this building. That’s why we wanted to give it a proper farewell before it totally disappears, remaining only in our memories and Lies’ relics.

( a project with Lies Caeyers ( http://www.liescaeyers.com/) )

Time is a book about a fading place

2009-11-24T05:52:00.000-08:00

Immersion Atelier 7

2009-11-14T04:38:00.000-08:00

“Immersie: Atelier 7” is an Homage to Luc Peire by

Jonas Vansteenkiste.

It’s an sculptural installation with references to Peire’s works

on the one side, and a house in the Judestraat (Knokke) on the other side.

This house is called ‘Atelier 7’ by Jenny Peire-Verbrugge in

the book “De Ateliers van Luc Peire”.

Jonas deals with the notion of “immersion”, which connects him with Peire, and which

is based on the formal reference to this building.

Vansteenkiste and Peire’s “ immersion” is all about a subject’s

spacial experience.

The spectator undergoes his environment, he’s immersed into it, which creates a dialogue between man and space.

Vansteekiste integrates the vertical lines from Peire’s works in the construction of his work.

The sculptural installation is lit from the inside out, which draws a silhouette on the walls of the exposition room.

This shadow silhouette refers to the works of Peire.

In "Immersion, atelier 7 brengt Vansteenkiste een treffende ode aan Luc Peire.

De jonge kunstenaar belicht op een originele manier zowel Peires beeldend oeuvre alsook de site van de Stichting Jenny en Luc Peire in de Judestraat te Knokke.

Het nummer in de titel verwijst naar het boek: De ateliers van Luc Peire (ludion, Gent-Amsterdam, 2001)

waarin Jenny Peire-Verbruggen het atelier in Knokke als nr 7 beschrijft.

De installatie van Vansteenkiste is geconcipieerd als een grote houten ' geparafraseerde' maquette van de totaal site in de Judestraat (nieuwbouw, tuin, atelier en bungalow) volledig antraciet geschilderd.

Verticalen, geïnspireerd op Peires werk, breken wanden, muren en ruimtes open die vanbinnen uit verlicht, een fascinerend spel van genuanceerde schaduw-en lichtlijnen op de witte omringende wanden van de expo ruimte projecteren.

Immersion,Atelier 7 is een verassende persoonlijke variatie op een bestaand gegeven, maar vormt tegelijk een boeiende confrontatie waarbij 'immersie'de dominante toon vormt: de mens wordt ondergedompeld in een licht-shaduw omgeving. Zoals in het twee- als driedimentionaal werk van Peire treedt dus ook bij Vansteenkiste de bezoeker in dialoog met de gecreërde ruimte en wordt erin opgenomen. Slagen beide kunstenaars er als 'metteurs en espace' niet wonderwel in de mens intensief deelachtig te maken aan hun eigen denkraum eb umgebung?

Tekst Marc Peire

The locked room

2009-06-21T12:44:00.001-07:00

Domestic Cave 1

2009-06-21T12:39:00.000-07:00

La Stanza, a false memory of a city

2009-04-21T08:14:00.000-07:00

La stanza, a false memory of a city

The work La stanza, a false memory of a city made

by Jonas Vansteenkiste is a miniature room built out of unprocessed wood he found in the city of Rome.

The work has a little door and window and it stands on high legs,

the ceiling of the room is a television screen where the artist made

a video work with found footage of the following movies:

Belissima (Visconti), mama Roma (Pasolini),

Ieri, Oggi, Domani (Sica), Roma (Fellini) &

Roman holiday (Wyler).

The little room refers to Vansteenkiste’s bedroom where he watched all these movies.

Because of these films the artist had a false perception/memory of Rome.

When Jonas visited Rome he felt a friction between the memory (formed by the movies) and the reality of the city.

This forms the base of La stanza, a false memory of a city.

In this work Vansteenkiste suggests a more active or even immersive

point of view for the persons watching his work: the persons stand lower than the little room

and through the window and doors they can watch the screen where Rome is shown

on the moving ceiling. In this manner the ceiling refers to the Roman

Mastership of the fresco on the ceiling of churches,

like the one Michelangelo made in the Sistine Chapel.

Manuela Pacella (curator)

A dollhouse for Rachel Whiteread

2009-04-02T05:12:00.000-07:00

A dollhouse for Rachel Whiteread

When I was physically confronted with one of her casted stairwells, I was astounded.

The work left a lasting impression on me and I wanted to know more about this artist and her work.

When I set out to read about her work, I saw resemblances between

how we both experience the relation between human beings and space.

I began to see Rachel as a mentor guiding me

in my own artistic quest.

In this manner she gave me insights in my own perception and experience.

I have the impression that Rachel has given me a lot through her work and thus

I wanted to give something in return.

I read that Rachel collects dollhouses and this triggered my work.

As we all know a dollhouse is a relational object in the best known way:

an object between a father and his daughter.

The maker and the one it is made for.

As such in the back of my mind I started to

make my own dollhouse with my childhood home as the blue-print.

My dollhouse has no walls: it is in fact an open structure that refers to a house and its rooms.

The only room that is defined is the staircase.

This is a hint to the starting point of the project

(the experience with a Whiteread stairwell)

The sculpture is the first part of this work.

The second part consists of actually presenting

the dollhouse sculpture to Rachel Whiteread herself.

heterotopic drawing 1

2009-03-10T02:26:00.000-07:00

"Heterotopic drawing 1" is een tekening uit de reeks: "A maze is a house built to confuse" en vormt de heterotopie pagina voor het "how to save the world scrapbook" in het kader van the game is up festival in de vooruit.
Het scapbook is ook online:http://www.yutumitu.be/

Rodenbach Award

2009-02-04T04:02:00.000-08:00

Opstelling in Rodenbach Brouwerij te Roeselare.(September, 2008)

Geselecteerde werken: "Transit", "Breath", "Us", "Gorecki"

"Gorecki's room"

2008-07-23T04:23:00.000-07:00

(ruimtelijke schets 1, 2008)

"Gorecki" 2008

2008-04-30T04:05:00.001-07:00

“Gorecki”

is a video presented on a flat screen television mounted onto a white wall.

The video begins with a black image and only audio.

The audio is organic and crunching.

Once the image comes alive one’s interprets it to be a wall however we

cannot define the exact image.

As the title of the work suggests this is an ode to Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki.

The Polish composer mainly known from his Symphony No. 3

‘Symfonia piesni zalobnych’ known as Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs.

His music evolves very slow and is meditative and this is one of the reason to create this ode.

The beginning of the video is a black screen with only audio,

sounds, very organic sounds with a long resonance.

The sound is slow and takes it time to unfold.

Not only are the sounds slow, they are also very deep and profound.

The actual image appears from within the black and it seems that we are

looking at a still image.

The picture is modest, peaceful and the whiteness of the wall is interrupted

by light beams passing by.

A dialogue between image and sound is created and on certain

points it is a kind of fusion.

But then, the moment you expect it to become a total symbiosis their roads

parts and a tension between the two comes to live.

The sound as the picture are striking, torsionating layers in a rather

pleasant and fascinating way.

The audio that in the beginning sounded mysterious and cold becomes

more and more to the full and seem to influence the picture

to burst until the image dissappears and the only thing left are sounds

and an after image of the space.

"Us" 2008

2008-03-27T02:14:00.000-07:00

“US” is a relational object; a pillow

which connects two humans and concurrently detains them together.

The two of them make up this image and step by step it seems

that their identity fades and they are seen as one.

This object creates a symbiosis of these two people in which each one is depending on the other.

However charming and recognisable this object is in it’s appearance,

one’s feels the negative tension this object bears.

The longer these persons are sharing this intimate dialogue the more they seem to loose themselves and even suffocate each other.

“Us” tells the story about an unseen space and a social space

that is not pronounced but wears a tangible tension.

http://www.nieuwsblad.be/Article/Detail.aspx?articelD=s41shvuc

"Breath" 2007

2008-03-25T03:26:00.001-07:00

“Breath”

is a video installation.

The video shows us a glance, through an open window, on a house on the other

side of the street.

The window of the other house is also open and the curtains beat

against the wind.

The curtains of the two rooms take over each others rhythm and this

makes that a connection comes into being between the two rooms.

In the picture of ‘Breath’ you feel clearly a desire between both

rooms,

there is a connection between them.

"Transit" 2006/2007

2008-03-24T07:16:00.000-07:00

(Filmstill from "Transit")

(Installation "Transit")

“TRANSIT” is an installation constructed out of two elements.

A physical part; a loose standing construction of a corridor, entirely

build up out of gyproc and wood and only the interior is finished.

The interior has been finished similar to a newly build apartment.

The colour of the walls is a deep grey, taken out of the video part of this work.

The video part shows us a picture of a single bedroom, seen from behind half open doors.

The shade is grey and shows us a room in which the only movements come from the wind and the light.

It seems to be a peaceful area but when confronted longer you notice that this room has an other undertone.

“Transit” begins just like a portrait.

This time a portrait of a state of mind, a mental state.

The ‘portrait’ has been replaced by a space.

The physical element, occurring as a corridor that normally leads usfrom one place to another leads us

in this installation brutally to a deadend.

‘Transit’ has all the qualities of a corridor: long, narrow, etc.

This space only pretends to be a corridor, it doesn’t lead us to another physical space.

In this case it is the conductor to another unreachable place.

A bedroom. The bedroom, often seen as one of the most intimate spaces of

someone’s house has been given a slightly odd nature.

The room seems to have everything to be charming and peaceful, but after a while it

develops an awkward after taste.

"Fluïdum" 2006

2008-03-24T06:07:00.000-07:00

still from render

“Fluïdum” starts out of an older project “revised memories”,

in which I tried to add my feelings onto a photographed moment.

When I presented the series for the first time I had a weird experience;

my feelings towards that moment were altered and I was looking again to just a

new picture.

Feelings are like water and I wanted to introduce that into my pictures.

I then decided to scan one of the pictures and wrote a computer programme

that alters the colours in an autonomous manner.

In the beginning, the changes are very subtle and gradually.

In no moment this painting is in a state of rest.

It just keeps on evolving.

"An/Eva" 2004

2008-03-24T05:45:00.000-07:00

Video/foto

Duration: 11min

Portret of four women

"Narcissus" 2005

2008-03-24T04:28:00.000-07:00

Interactief object:
"Narcissus" leest de kleur van je iris en beslist zo of je
de inhoud van het object kan zien.