Category Archives: Vision

| Warmenhoven & Venderbos blog vision |
This category contains all kinds of articles about interesting and inspirational topics. This ranges from art, artist, fashion events, books, exhibitions, music, film and basicly anything which fascinates and inspires the designers of Warmenhoven & Venderbos.

| Warmenhoven & Venderbos blog vision |
Deze categorie bevat artikelen over: kunst, kunstenaars, mode, exposities, evenementen, boeken, muziek en film, welke de modeontwerpers van Warmenhoven & Venderbos fascineren en inspireren.

Body Pressure | Conceptual performance art by Bruce Nauman

Posted on 15/08/2011 by W&V

Body Pressure is an art piece by Bruce Nauman from 1974 which basically is a mix between conceptual text art and performance art. The work invites the spectator to become the performer. The physical form of the work is a simple poster which serves more as an igniter as it gives the performers a set of typed out instructions for merging their bodies with an architectural surface. Body Pressure is, aside from the physical experience, also a mental journey which challenges the performers to think about the physical aspects and limitations of their own bodies and travel beyond these limitations in their minds.

Below follows the text of the poster:

Body Pressure

Press as much of the front surface of
your body (palms in or out, left or right cheek)
against the wall as possible.

Press very hard and concentrate.

Form an image of yourself (suppose you
had just stepped forward) on the
opposite side of the wall pressing
back against the wall very hard.

Press very hard and concentrate on the image pressing very hard.

(the image of pressing very hard)
press your front surface and back surface
toward each other and begin to ignore or
block the thickness of the wall. (remove
the wall)

Think how various parts of your body
press against the wall; which parts
touch and which do not.

Consider the parts of your back which
press against the wall; press hard and
feel how the front and back of your
body press together.

Concentrate on the tension in the muscles,
pain where bones meet, fleshy deformations that occur under pressure; consider
body hair, perspiration, odors (smells).

This may become a very erotic exercise.

Work by Bruce Nauman | Photos by Bruce Nauman, top: Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, centre: Jacob Birken

Sam Samore | conceptual photography

Posted on 03/08/2011 by W&V

Sam Samore creates fascinating large scale conceptual photographs. Appropriative practices, which are established by artists such as Cindy Sherman, are a key element in his works. His photos are an exploration of privacy and myth in contemporary society.

Britany Salsbury (Artforum) about his work:
Samore’s photographs are characterized by open-ended and evocative narrative compositions that are reminiscent of film stills. Through the contrast between the straightforwardness of their artifice and the impossibility of explaining the situations they portray, Samore’s photographs reveal a fragmented and constructed subject that invites interrogation of gender, popular culture, and identity.

Britany Salsbury gives a clear analyse of Sam Samore’s work in the following quote: “The Dark Suspicion#1 (See top photo), for instance, shows a young woman whose vacant stare and decorated femininity (heavy makeup, etc.) make her resemble the subject of a fashion advertisement. The model is only visible, however, through a gap between two other figures, whose showy lipstick and starkly pale skin seem virtually identical to her own. Although it would be easiest to rationalize the two doppelgangers as mirror reflections of the female figure, such a reading is impossible, given their position in the photograph: between the woman and the viewer. This manipulation of space eschews predictable or concrete explanation and frustrates the viewer’s impulse to impose purpose or narrative on figures whose functions might have otherwise seemed clear.”

In the above video by Kiki Allgeier , Sam Samore explains some more about his works. Samore’s role within LM100 (Le Meridien) was to help identify and chronicle the narratives inherent in the guest experience, from his contributions to the stories included in Le Méridien’s 50 Words story collection to his role as an artist behind a series of keys in the Unlock Art collection.

Photos from top to bottom:
The Dark Suspicion #1, 2011
Allegories of Beauty (Incomplete) #108, #44, #63, 1990s
The Dark Suspicion #5, 2011
Allegories of Beauty (Incomplete) #47, #10, #50, #8,1990s

Photos by: Sam Samore | Video by: Kiki Allgeier | Source: Britany Salsbury |

Esther Stocker | Geometric abstraction and perception

Posted on 28/07/2011 by W&V

Esther Stocker’s work mainly consists of paintings, photo’s and installations in an abstract and geometrical perspective, the various genres being closely related to each other.She works with a visually complex repertory of geometric sign and grid systems which explore the general conditions of perception and, in a broader sense, the effects of digital image technologies.
Esther Stocker’s reflexion is focused on the question: “How is a perfect system imperfect in reality?” Her geometric structures are based upon eternally self-repeating modules that create a seemingly ordered visual rhythm, to which the artist adds aberrations in order to generate an adjacent but new rhythm. This introduction of deviation in the optical balance, similar to 16th century’s mannerist architectural approach, creates surprise and emotion through the purposeful disruption of order and plane dimension.

Esther Stocker presents her work in her first solo show in France from the September 10 to October 15, 2011 at the Alberta Pane Gallery, Paris. This exhibition carries the title: Dirty Geometry.

Photos by: Esther Stocker, Sacha Georg, Michael Goldgruber, Jan Mahr | Esther Stocker website |

Anish Kapoor | Monumenta 2011 | Leviathan

Posted on 14/06/2011 by W&V

Each year Monumenta invites an internationally renowned artist to turn their vision to the vast Nave of Paris’ Grand Palais and to create a new artwork especially for this space. The first challenge was met by German artist Anselm Kiefer followed by American artist Richard Serra in 2008 and French artist Christian Boltanski in 2010. For its fourth incarnation, the French Ministry for Culture and Communication has invited Anish Kapoor to produce a new work for the Nave’s monumental space.

The artist describes the work he is creating for Monumenta as follows: “A single object, a single form, a single colour.” “My ambition”, he adds, “is to create a space within a space that responds to the height and luminosity of the Nave at the Grand Palais. Visitors are invited to walk inside the work, to immerse themselves in colour, and it will, I hope, be a contemplative and poetic experience.”

The work is not merely speaking visually, but it leads the visitor on a journey of total sensorial and mental discovery. It questions what we think we know about art, our body, our most intimate experiences and our origins.

leviathan by Anish Kapoor will be on display untill 23rd June 2011 at the Grand Palais, Paris, France.

Photos top 1 to 5 by: Designboom | Photos bottom 6 to 7 by: Anish Kapoor, Didier Plowy and Monumenta |

Henri Bergson on sex appeal

Posted on 31/05/2011 by W&V

Henri Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality. He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature “in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented.

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