DIRK BRAECKMAN - MARC TRIVIER

October 3- November 7, 2002

For Dirk Braeckman, a photograph is nothing more than a surface made up of blacks, whites and greys, that fluctuates between abstraction and representation. His works represent «portraits of interiors»: floors, walls, ceilings, wall coverings, doors, beds, carpet of dimly lit rooms which stretch out to crate landscapes. His images are not staged and not often peopled; they are the expression of the artist’s momentary experience with a strong autobiographical character. The titles of the works-initials and numbers-refer to private codes and do not direct the viewer in the reading of the image. Yet, Braeckman’s photos are not merely his subjective representation of reality. It is also the pursuit of an objective representation of what surrounds us expressed by the artist’s desire for the outmost abstraction of what is depicted. The material in photos is drawn from his immediate surroundings; recently, however, the artist begun to use other sources as well, as photographs from magazines and the Internet as well as reproductions of older works of his, which he retouches.

Like the photographs of Dirk Braeckman, those of Marc Trivier are black and white. Portraits, landscapes, but also photographs from slaughter-houses are «the forms» which underlie the work of Trivier. Over many years the artist has photographed famous people, artist, mostly in their old age: Beckett, Bacon, Dubuffet, Warhol, Foucault, Jean Genet… are but a few of the famous sitters of Trivier. Among his many portraits, one may see those of men and women with no surname, portraits of people with mental disorder form lunatic asylums.

Fascinated by the immediacy and urgency of the medium he employs, the artist refuses to re-order a sighting angle or retouch a picture. He refuses to reframe his photos and often he lets the edges of the negative outline the print. Trivier believes that a photograph, by definition, «is linked to the notion of reality, and that its affects immediately overshadow the aims used withing the concept of creative individuality».by nature and regardless of the artist’s intentions a photograph that becomes and image escapes the wishes and expectations of the photographer and becomes an event, by its own, a new autonomous reality.