blue heaven

When function becomes art.

I chose a work from the collection of Mu.Zee in Ostend. On a white wall, light white-blue sheets of porcelain fan out in an irregular rhythm into an open wooden box where several are already arranged. Disorder becomes order or is it order that volatilises into disorder. The seemingly wild flight of porcelain sheets sketches on the wall an irregular rhythm whose elements each time leave a slight shadow of their movement. It is like a formation of birds, sometimes isolated but more often in a closed group, heading towards its goal.

The poetry of this metaphor is somewhat sobered by the monumental blank-wood cabinet that, opened like a trap, seeks to recreate order or, just the other way around, offers the elements once again the freedom, say the chance, to escape rigorous cataloguing. Viewed this way, this subtle artwork becomes a fragile commentary on today's over-regulated society. I may be allowing myself an interpretation here that did not originate with Piet Stockmans but he still put me on a track to read this particular work. Apart from that, this wall sculpture also has a palpable aesthetic dimension, a beauty of rhythm, colour shading and composition that one can't simply forget.

The space around the wall is completely conditioned by it by which I mean that one can no longer experience it as a space an sich but a place where an event takes place, a story is told, a visual adventure begins. One should not expect more but also no less from a work of art.

Ludo Bekkers (AICA)