Philippe Van Snick

The Grazer Kunstverein kicks off its 30th anniversary program with a large solo exhibition by Belgian artist Philippe Van Snick (Ghent, 1946) as a continuation of its exploration into notions of social abstraction. The exhibition spans almost five decades and traces developments in the artist’s highly consistent body of work, best known for its post-minimalist approach to painting. The exhibition is the artist’s first in Austria.

In the ’70s, Van Snick developed an interest in systematic methodologies that lead him to formulate a consistent color and numeral system. This allowed him to create a steady body of work in the following decades. For the artist, light and color are both scientific, objective descriptions as well as subjective codes inspired by our everyday experience. The concept of time, specifically the dualism of day and night and the lightness and darkness that signifies its passing, is often explored in works that underline the experiential relationship between the viewer and his/her surroundings. By finding itself within the realm between painting and sculpture, the predominant concerns of modernism are invoked by questioning the autonomy of the artwork and geometric abstraction as a universal language.

The artist’s early conceptual photography and film works form the backbone for the exhibition in which everyday observations are abstracted and formalized.

Philippe Van Snick’s solo exhibition is co-organized with De Hallen Haarlem (Netherlands) where a complementary show of his work is currently on display (January 16–May 16, 2016). For the occasion of these exhibitions, Van Snick has produced an artist’s edition, which can be acquired at both institutions.

The Members Library* presents

Philippe Van Snick—Studies
As an introduction to the exhibition, The Members Library presents Philippe van Snick’s notebooks and sketches, which illustrate his exploration into the illusion of “perfect” shapes such as circles and shapes but also the physical understanding of found daily routines or situations. In 1970 he published a definition of the ellipse that underlines his fascination for this dynamic phenomenon. He writes “The ellipse is a conical section without (real) asymptotes and with an eccentricity E=C:A<1; for C=E=O it becomes a circle.” Around the same time, the ellipse became a crucial shape in the various media applied by the artist, whether through photography, film or drawing. In his notebooks, one can see the artist slowly developing a code in order to abstract reality. The models in the exhibition are sketches in order to relate color and shape to scale and volume.

*The Members Library is constructed and designed by the artist Céline Condorelli (b. 1974, France) in collaboration with Harry Thaler as a permanent work entitled Things That Go Without Saying.

On display continuously

The Peacock
February 1, 2013–present

A non-stop group show examining the interior of the Grazer Kunstverein by introducing (new) furniture, design, applied and decorative arts that analyze their own functionality.

On display
Plamen Dejanov & Swetlana Heger*, Josh Faught, Liam Gillick*, Nicolás Paris, Will Stuart
*New additions

Ian Wilson
February 1, 2013–present
 

Please check our website www.grazerkunstverein.org for regular updates on our program. For further information, please contact office [​at​] grazerkunstverein.org.

Grazer Kunstverein is structurally supported by the city of Graz, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Art and Culture, the province of Styria, Legero The Footwear Company and its members. The exhibition of Philippe Van Snick at De Hallen Haarlem and Grazer Kunstverein is generously supported by Flanders Agency for Arts and Heritage.