The art of falling

(Dorian Gaudin, exhibition view - Courtesy of the artist and C L E A R I N G New York/Brussels)

The new exhibition at C L E A R I N G, “Derrière, après les chutes”, offers two different solo shows under a single title. The idea of falling (chute) is most prominent in the work of Dorian Gaudin, who exhibits a number of installations on the themes of tension and balance on the gallery’s ground floor. In one, we see a wall made up of various pieces of debris that hold each other in equilibrium by means of a mechanical system of pulleys and pins. This is a work that Gaudin has exhibited before, with fragments that were connected alright, but more shattered. Another installation consists of a large wooden sheet, bent but occasionally released by a mechanism, thereby creating a loud bang. In the corner there is a work made up of an old-school construction in which two strips of wood constantly knock against each other. Gaudin works in a low-tech aesthetic, using mechanisms that don’t disguise their operations but actually focus on them.

(Neil Beloufa, exhibition view - Courtesy of the artist and C L E A R I N G New York/Brussels)

On the first floor, Neil Beloufa presents a labyrinthine total installation inspired by rumours about terrorists who were said to have hidden in a modernist villa in 1990s Algeria. A video shows people speculating about what has happened in the building: actors alternate with real witnesses, in a setting that further increases the tension between reality and fiction by combining authentic elements with sets made of paper and cardboard. This too is spatially converted into an installation made up of broken pieces of walls, like a fragmented modernist villa, which takes over the whole floor. With the residue of the installations (the left-overs or offcuts – les chutes, in French), Beloufa constructed another, autonomous sculpture. Although the work of these two artists is quite different, here it is the similarities that come to the fore rather than the differences, in an original and successful marriage!

DERRIÈRE, APRÈS LES CHUTES > 1/3, di/ma/Tu > za/sa/Sa 12 > 18.00, C L E A R I N G, Louizalaan 292 avenue Louise, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-644.49.11, c-l-e-a-r-i-n-g.com