Le Kabinet sets up an exhibition with a series of intriguing prints

Marine Penhouët and Arnaud Rochard from Le Kabinet travelled to the United States with a big, empty file and came back with a case of severe jetlag and a series of intriguing prints for their “Kabinet d’estampes #2: Yellow Bridge”.

You could describe Le Kabinet as a small place with an insatiable appetite. Thanks to its burning passion, the alternative space on Koninginnelaan/avenue de la Reine has evolved over the past few years into an admirable platform for independent artistic expression, often through small but clever and highly enticing exhibitions that demonstrate its love for the printed image. It is a space of meticulous reflection and creation, and one where art is considered an encounter, a shared experience. A prosaic act, a poetic gesture.

This small place has just finished a grand tour of the United States. Apart from jetlag and a minor return-to-real-life depression, Marine Penhouët and Arnaud Rochard’s (two of the driving forces behind Le Kabinet) trip resulted in an ambitious exhibition.

Marine Penhouët: “‘Yellow Bridge’ is the second instalment in the exhibition series ‘Kabinet d’estampes’. The title is a very literal reference to the yellow bridges of Pittsburgh, one of the cities we visited. But there is of course also a symbolic reading: through collaboration and exchange, we try to bridge the space between Belgian and American artists, and also between the imagery of the underground (in drawing and comics) and contemporary art. You might even see a link with the Yellow Brick Road.”

The one leading Dorothy Gale to the Emerald City and the wonderful Wizard of Oz. The wizard who got Le Kabinet’s American trip started, was Detroit-based artist Ryan Standfest. Arnaud Rochard: “Three years ago, he asked me take part in ‘Chasing Posada!’, an exhibition in which nineteen artists responded to the artwork and ideas of the popular Mexican illustrator-printmaker José Guadalupe Posada. The collaboration was wonderful, and he invited me to visit him at his studio if I was ever in the US.”

This one connection turned into a kind of relay on night busses and trains across the States, discovering inspiring studios, techniques, and oeuvres in cities like New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Washington. Arnaud Rochard: “Ryan put us in touch with Amze Emmons, a friend who is also a draughtsman and printmaker from Philadelphia. In turn, Amze showed us work by Grimaldi Baez, an artist who makes his own drawing machines, like tattoo guns, from discarded electrical material… One encounter led to another."

"Eventually we found ourselves in the studio of Jennifer Melby. She is not an artist herself, but since the early 1980s, she has developed a phenomenal printmaking practice. The idea of the trip, creating connections – with hopefully in the future the possibility to organise an exhibition in the reverse direction –, is the whole point of this project.”

Take a trip and multiply
This whole network will ultimately converge in a fanzine (that also includes work by other artists) and an exhibition that juxtaposes work by Belgian members like Brecht Evens (with a lithograph made by the American, Paris-based master printer Michael Woolworth), Pascal Duquenne, Olivier Deprez, and Sylvain Bureau with Paul Nudd’s visceral humour, Millee Tibbs’s enchanting light landscapes, Alex Buzzalini’s disillusioned Wild West, and Ryan Standfest’s elementary particles.

Marine Penhouët: “We were actually very surprised by how much the artists that we met trusted us. You arrive at someone’s door as a complete stranger with a big file and you ask if they want to give you some of their work for an exhibition in Brussels. But everyone responded very positively. I think the fact that we came in person, to visit their studios with an open perspective and great interest, and that we were looking for a genuine, tangible exchange by asking for work that we could take with us immediately opened a lot of doors and lowered many thresholds.”

And this boundlessness is at the heart of “Kabinet d’estampes”. Arnaud Rochard: “That is the whole idea behind the series: to re-imbue the print with the original role that it had since the Middle Ages, to enable you to communicate ideas to the rest of the world through a multiplication of a text or an image. Isn’t that fantastic? That you can travel the world with a file to compile an exhibition.”

“‘Kabinet d’estampes’ is gradually living up to its concept,” Marine Penhouët adds, “and is thus becoming what it was about all along: an idea that can spread thanks to the mobility of a printed image. It enables us to travel, meet interesting people, discover beautiful and inspiring work, and then to present it all over the place. And then to get back to work ourselves. All those influences are simply bursting to get onto the page.”

> Kabinet d'estampes #2: Yellow Bridge. 08/06 > 24/06, by appointment only (10/06, 16.00 > 22.00: opening + zine launch & 17/06, 14.00 > 18.00: zines presentation), Le Kabinet, Brussels