CREATING GENERAL MEETING
How does a circle of dogs appear?
This work arose directly from a collection that started with a single one;
an old and battered stone dog that got left behind on my studio table.
“Can't you use that dog for something new?”, someone remarked to me.
The dog looked timidly down. A paw. A piece off. A strange old colour. Actually it was a very ugly dog, which I couldn't do much with - not with a single one - but if I had more . . I started collecting.
And collected for at least a year and a half.
In addition to collecting, General Meeting was born of selection; not all dogs were eligible. Many dropped out because of their cheerfulness or the presence of, for example, a grassy plateau around them.
The remaining dogs looked sad and/or serious. Or at least neutral. They were without hats or clothing, and in the natural colours of white, beige, brown, grey and black.
Why dogs and not, for example, cats or birds?
In the first place because the dog is an outspoken group animal. It generally likes company. In addition, the ‘dog’ species had the right appeal I was looking for in a semi-conscious way.
The image of the dog is easily lost amongst its kind, in a certain passiveness.
Whenever I added dogs, they blended into the growing collection, but the look of the whole didn't change in a drastic way. The group got bigger.
Somehow I was looking for that inconspicuousness of each separate image.
With a number of around 340 dogs I finally found the group complete.
They formed a quantity.
Loneliness in a circle that did not radiate loneliness. A literal gathering. Not ready for anything. Crowded around nothing. An emptiness. A circular emptiness, formed by completeness.
I graduated with the dogs. They eventually ended up in the former studio of a deceased artist, during an exhibition. An artist who painted a circular panorama of Scheveningen (1881).
When you stand in the middle you see the world around you magically appear. As a painting.
Now.. What would you see if you were standing in the middle of the circle of dogs?
Perhaps yourself.
How does a circle of dogs appear?
This work arose directly from a collection that started with a single one;
an old and battered stone dog that got left behind on my studio table.
“Can't you use that dog for something new?”, someone remarked to me.
The dog looked timidly down. A paw. A piece off. A strange old colour. Actually it was a very ugly dog, which I couldn't do much with - not with a single one - but if I had more . . I started collecting.
And collected for at least a year and a half.
In addition to collecting, General Meeting was born of selection; not all dogs were eligible. Many dropped out because of their cheerfulness or the presence of, for example, a grassy plateau around them.
The remaining dogs looked sad and/or serious. Or at least neutral. They were without hats or clothing, and in the natural colours of white, beige, brown, grey and black.
Why dogs and not, for example, cats or birds?
In the first place because the dog is an outspoken group animal. It generally likes company. In addition, the ‘dog’ species had the right appeal I was looking for in a semi-conscious way.
The image of the dog is easily lost amongst its kind, in a certain passiveness.
Whenever I added dogs, they blended into the growing collection, but the look of the whole didn't change in a drastic way. The group got bigger.
Somehow I was looking for that inconspicuousness of each separate image.
With a number of around 340 dogs I finally found the group complete.
They formed a quantity.
Loneliness in a circle that did not radiate loneliness. A literal gathering. Not ready for anything. Crowded around nothing. An emptiness. A circular emptiness, formed by completeness.
I graduated with the dogs. They eventually ended up in the former studio of a deceased artist, during an exhibition. An artist who painted a circular panorama of Scheveningen (1881).
When you stand in the middle you see the world around you magically appear. As a painting.
Now.. What would you see if you were standing in the middle of the circle of dogs?
Perhaps yourself.