I love listening. It is one of the only spaces where you can be still and moved at the same time. — Nayyirah Waheed — Saturday September 21st — —

The idea is to die young as late as possible. — Ashley Montagu — Saturday September 21st — —

“What art does — maybe what it does most completely — is tell us, make us feel that what we think we know, we don’t. There are whole worlds around us that we’ve never glimpsed.” Greil Marcus — Saturday September 21st — —

Temps Mort by Alex Verhaest

Temps Mort is the first solo exhibition by Alex Verhaest which opened on the 7th of September in the Amsterdam-based gallery Grimm. Roeselare-born Verhaest, who now lives in Amsterdam, investigates contrasts, commonalities and the fusion between man and technology, actor and computer. Her first solo exhibition consists of various video works culminating in one large scale movie scene: the red line connecting all works is the story of a family embroiled in an age-old drama. Divided over several screens and using different techniques, each project depicts a certain element of the final movie scene. There are five ‘Character Studies’ representing a personal analysis of each individual character, as well as five ‘Table Props’ that represent the characters’ inner psychology.

Alex Verhaest is an artist who tries to expose the mechanics of the medium of film. How does one create narrative, or a character? What is alienation and how does one move an audience to enter into the illusion? She draws inspiration from a variety of sources for her work, 15th century old master painting as well as writer Haruki Murakami and the neo-baroque aesthetics of filmmakers like David Lynch and Matthew Barney.

The work of Alex Verhaest is swiftly gaining attention in the art world and has so far been included in ‘Beyond Tradition’ (2013, Garage, Rotterdam), ‘Museum Night’ (2011, Rubenshouse, Antwerp) and she exhibited at ‘Watou Kunstenfestival’ (2012), ‘Biennale Internation- al de la Photographie et des Art Visuels’ (Liege, 2010) and was selected for ‘Platform for Urban Investigation’ in Shanghai.

All pictures courtesy of the artist and Grimm Gallery.

The exhibition at Grimm will run until the 5th of October, the gallery is located at the Frans Halsstraat 26 in Amsterdam.