Document sans titre

19 September 2011 – 8 January 2012
Opening: Saturday 17 December 2011, 11 a.m.
PROJECT ROOM @ AQUARIUM
WANNES GOETSCHALCKX

"I had an idea. I will make a toothpick. From a tree, by hand."
* Artist's statement (letter of intention, January 2011).

The starting point for Wannes Goetschalckx’s (*1978, lives and works in Belgium) project, was an immense poplar installed in the “Aquarium”, at the Casino Luxembourg, which was to be carved with his own hands into one toothpick. Since the beginning of his artist’s residency in September 2011, he has been harnessed to this colossal task.

Wannes Goetschalckx has literally measured up to the tree, carving it by hand, layer by layer, without resorting to industrial tools. This creative act highlights the reverence of the artist and the man, faced with the majestic force of nature, as much due to the physical energy used as to the investment in time. Giving himself and all of his time to the project during his residency, Goetschalckx ascribes his feat within a logic which defies the classic process of an artist’s residency. This is normally divided into two equal stages: the residency in the first stage, and the exhibition in the other. Here, the residency has worked according to a principle of bilaterality: the tree consumes the artist’s time for activity, and he, for his part, is “sacrificing” the exhibition itself (until 8 January 2012) for the sake of his residency.

A publication about the project with texts by Christine Walentiny and Guy Rewenig will be published at the beginning of 2012.

Vidéo réalisée par Yann Tonnar
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© Jessica Theis - Blue Box design

Friday 16 December 2011

This project is realised with the support of Administration des Ponts et Chausssées and Chaux de Contern, Luxembourg.