Schönfeld Gallery presents a unique exhibition of works by Hugo Claus and Albert Pepermans
Early September, Schönfeld Gallery is presenting the exhibition Fabels, with works by Hugo Claus (1929-2008) and Albert Pepermans (1947), in its new space Schönfeld C in the Chaussée de Charleroi. The exhibition is part of a year of festivities in which Schönfeld Gallery is celebrating Albert Pepermans’ 75th birthday through various projects.
Between 1990 and 1995, the poet, writer, painter and film-maker Hugo Claus and the artist Albert Pepermans realised three projects together (Steeds/cité, 10 dagen met libération and Et voilà le travail). The resulting works can now be seen in the exhibition Fabels.
The original drawings of Steeds/Cité are exhibited as a diptych.
The diptychs of 10 dagen met Libération were drawn on thin pattern paper. They are glued on canvas and stretched on stretcher bars. The large monochrome works of Et voilà le travail, oil pastel on patterned paper, are mounted on canvas and stretched on stretcher bars. The twenty aluminium sheets are also on display. The music that accompanies this project can be heard in the background.
Hugo Claus & Albert Pepermans: Fabels
September 4th - October 2nd 2021
Schönfeld C
STEEDS/CITÉ
Paris provided the inspiration for the drawings in Steeds/Cité (1990). Pepermans made a positive and a negative version of each drawing, in which the white and black reinforced the black and white. Claus wrote poems to accompany the drawings and did something similar: he composed ten diptychs, with one poem being the negative of the other.
The twenty poems and twenty drawings (375 x 275 mm) were screen-printed by Jan Keyzer and published by Galerie Camille von Sholz (Brussels, 1990). The series of 35 pieces was numbered and signed. Afterwards, the drawings and the poems appeared in the Nieuw Wereldtijdschrift (March-April 1991).
10 DAGEN MET LIBÉRATION
For 10 dagen met Libération (1990) Claus and Pepermans gave their artistic vision of articles from the daily newspapaer Libération. They each worked in their own studios, in France and in Belgium, without seeing or hearing each other. The only binding element between the two artists was materialistic: the same paper, the same format, the same technique. There was no agreement on themes or inspiration. Each day, the works were numbered so that they formed one whole in a diptych.
ET VOILÀ LE TRAVAIL
Et voilà le travail (1995) consists of ten monochrome works on paper, size 150 x 200 cm. Pepermans made sketches, Claus wrote "ten quatrains for Albert Pepermans". Pepermans wrote them in handwriting under the monochrome stencil fields. The theme: alienation, fading memory, lostness.
In addition, Pepermans hammered and chiselled the texts and images into aluminium sheets (A4 format) and a CD was recorded on which Claus reads his poems, accompanied by Albert Pepermans on the piano (recorded by BRTN Radio 3, published by CC Strombeek-Bever, 1995).
