VALÉRIE MANNAERTS - DIAMOND DANCER
de Appel, Amsterdam
18 December — 28 February 2011
This winter de Appel presents the solo exhibition "Diamond Dancer" by the Belgian visual artist Valérie Mannaerts (Brussels, 1974). In spatial installations Mannaerts combines sculptures, spatial objects, works on paper and photography in spatial installations in a way in which the different types of imagery cut across each other. Using the exhibition spaces in de Appel Boys' School, Mannaerts creates a total installation with a selection of uninhibited and disparate objects.
In her work Valérie Mannaerts extends the medium of collage to spatial objects. She examines the physiognomy of things and questions the relationship between organic and inorganic forms, the autonomy of objects and the stories concealed by them. Using materials such as wood, bronze, ceramics, cardboard, textiles, paint, concrete and paper Mannaerts created hybrid, controversial and ambiguous forms for this exhibition. Her work explores the boundaries between image and object in a way that is sometimes indirectly reminiscent of the work of the Surrealists.
The words from the title "Diamond Dancer" are intriguing, because they appear to be a reminder of something that is difficult to place. Mannaerts' visual work results in the same experience. Her works enters border areas, twilight zones in which the viewer looks for visual points of contact in bewilderment. The viewer is confronted with an object or a situation which demands preverbal observation before it is analysed. The objects alternate between being a sketch or a drawing, a sculpture and an ornament, a model and a life-size representation, between two and three dimensions. The precise interpretation is up to the individual viewer, because as Mannaerts once said: "People see and recognise in the world around them that what is already in their head."
Publication
In the context of the exhibition Valérie Mannaerts' first monograph is being published by de Appel, Extra City, Antwerp and Sternberg Press and will be available from 21 January 2011.
Orders via bookshop@deappel.nl
Events in the context of the exhibition:
Sun. 6 February
3 pm Free guided tours of the exhibition
4 pm Booklaunch monograph Valérie Mannaerts
Sun. 27 February
3 pm Free guided tours of the exhibition
4 pm Sunday School: one work of the exhibition becomes subject to a closer reading
Reservations: reservation@deappel.nl
Financial Support: The Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, The Municipality of Amsterdam
de Appel arts centre
Exhibition Venue:
de Appel Boys' School
Eerste Jacob van Campenstraat 59, Amsterdam
Correspondence address:
de Appel Office
Post Box 10764
1001 ET Amsterdam
the Netherlands
t +3120 6255651
e info@deappel.nl
www.deappel.nl
