Ruth Van Beek
logra conmover nuestra percepción de las cosas recordándonos que es
fraccionaria, y lo consigue sencillamente vaciando, troceando y plegando
fotografías generando una serie de rompecabezas que remiten
precisamente a que nuestra concepción del mundo se basa en la
construcción de piezas percibidas como un conjunto ordenado o con cierto
sentido, pero siempre tan incompleto como sus imágenes.
Os ofrezco un extracto del artículo de
Brad Feuerhelm dedicado a la obra de la holandesa en
ASX (american suburbx) y os dejo el enlace a su web y al artículo fuente original.
http://www.ruthvanbeek.com/
http://www.americansuburbx.com/2015/09/interview-ruth-van-beek-folded-dramas-unseen.html?fb_ref=899d8a238d994c6889986ebe9069e668-Facebook
Interview Ruth Van Beek: Folded Dramas @ Unseen
By
ASX Editors on September 15, 2015
“For me the attraction
of photography has always been very attached to it’s physical
appearance. The old analogue album photo, a pass photo in a wallet, a
damaged picture found on the street. The combination of what is on the
image and the shape that its is in provides the image with an important
extra layer of drama”.
Ruth Van Beek: The Folded Drama of Photography @ Unseen
By Brad Feuerhelm
Ruth van Beek graduated in
2002 at Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam following a Master in
Photography. Her work was presented in several solo and group exhibition
in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, Austin, New York and Beijing. Her
collages are nuanced mediations on the nature of image, material, and
the the subsequent folding of pre-existing images to create a new,
powerful, and often alienating new visual paradigm from the original
source material. She is represented by Ravenstijn Gallery in Amsterdam
who will be presenting her work at the fair this year, Booth 51.
BF: I have followed your work for sometime being a fan of your first
book “The Hibernators” with RvB Books. What struck me most about the
work was the careful attention paid to folding an images and what new
and somehow alien dimension it brought to the original source material.
For me, collage is a delicate procedure, from Hannah Hoch forward, there
have been multitudes of artists who employ the collage as practice but
few are very successful in my opinion. Can you enlighten our readership
about how you came to the “folding formula”?
RVB: For me the attraction of photography has always been very
attached to it’s physical appearance…the old analogue album photo, a
pass photo in a wallet, a damaged picture found on the street. The
combination of what is on the image and the shape that it is in provides
the image with an important extra layer of drama. After collecting
photos for a few years and making books with them, I realized that I
missed something essential. I was cherishing these anonymous pictures as
if they were my own. But of course, they where not. And in order to
make them mine I had stop treating them as treasures. I decided I had to
do the opposite and damage them in an almost violent way. I remember
the first time I put my knife in a portrait of an anonymous women. It
was so good to do this bad thing. And this is where it all started.
BF: Did you start with the photographic medium or was it general art school?
RvB: I studied at
The Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.
The first year is a general basic year, there is a lot of room to
experiment and to discover what you want to do. Last year, I started
teaching at the GRA in the basic year, and getting back in the energy of
art school made me realize how important this first year had been for
me. The academy provided me with a safe space where there was room to
make things go horribly wrong.
After the basic year I studied photography, I think I had already
chosen this department because of my strong love for the photographic
image, not so much for the technical part of the medium. This was an
element in my way. I was too impatient for the analogue process, and I
never had the money to develop my film. I soon started to make my own
sort of archive. A mixture of weird snapshots, polaroids, and found
footage. In the end, I stopped making photos. I just collected and
worked with existing photos, mainly family album photography. I used
these anonymous pictures to make books with.
BF: Collage often times has a surreal edge to it, perhaps
unintentional or perhaps due to the constraints of procedure. In your
work, there is a heavy organic feel to the image…a sort of zoo or
bio-morphic quality…Is there a reason you engage with images of the
natural world in your work?
RvB: I like the way the animals are photographed, especially in the
practical books about pets. Dogs, cats, guinea pigs, chickens…They look
like strange objects, forced in the frame of the picture, looking
hopelessly lost. When I start cutting or folding the cutout, I kind of
try to free the animal again from it’s pose, only to capture it again in
a new transformed pose or shape.
“I was cherishing these anonymous
pictures as if they where my own. But of coarse, they where not. And in
order to make them mine I had stop treating them as treasures. I decided
i had to do the opposite and damage them in an almost violent way. I
remember the first time i put my knife in a portrait of an anonymous
women. It was so good to do this bad thing”.
Same goes for the house plants. Bringing nature in the house,
constraining it in a pot in the window. The plants, the animals, they
share our lives and at the same time they don’t share, but live in a
paralel reality. That I find interesting and it seems to come back in my
work all the time.
The cutout shapes I use are probably the most biomorphic. It is the
natural shapes that appear when I make a drawing or when I start
cutting. I like it when these shapes look like volumes, like floating or
growing balloons. I want them to be in an in between state. Somewhere
between object and living organisme.
BF: Perhaps I should not ask…my grandfather got me interested in
history by giving me a National Geographic journal in the 80’s which
featured the King TUT Sarcophagus….could I ask what type of source
materials you tend to look through? Many people using collage often find
pornography an obvious source…yet your images are sensual without
employing pornographic materials
RVB: ah! Archeology! I guess that’s where it started for me too when I
was a kid. The mysteries of ancient Egypt, the pyramids, the gifts for
the dead. I often think of myself as an archeologist when I am
collecting books in the second hand store. I love to wonder around in
these places, all the objects from all the different houses and
families. All stuck together by coincidence. I try to limit myself to
the book department, but the actual objects are tempting to bring home
as well. The amount of genres in the book department of a typical Dutch
second hand shop is in a way very limited and clear. You have the
practical books that for years were present in every house hold. Books
on cooking, gardening, flower-arranging, pets, knitting and other
handicraft. All subjects very close to home and daily rituals.
And than there are the books that made you dream away. Travel guides,
Expeditions to the north pole, Exotic birds, Greek statues, Ancient
Egypt, wildlife, archeology, minerals and rocks. ( Not a lot of porn in
the regular second hand shop where I shop. ) When I bring the books to
my studio, I cut them apart and only keep the interesting images. They
can now start a new life in the different categories of my archive.
Their original context is thrown away with rests of the book. They
become open for interpretation.
A large part of my daily practice is looking at images and playing
around with my archive. Its is not that concrete stories appear to me,
but small gestures and details within the images can really make my
heart beat faster. The archive as a whole just seems to vibrate and come
to life. Like in a greenhouse, things are growing and growing…And now
the image of two hands that shape clay can suddenly look very erotic and
the dog that was stuck on its chain looking unhappy, is secretly
levitating when we are not looking…
Backdrops and pedestals get the leading part, Like with a fetish,
were the attraction is not on the regular erotic parts of the body, but
on the feet, the hair or knees. And i think that by covering and
obscuring big parts of the original subject with painted shapes of
paper, the viewer also unconsciously longs to see what is behind. This
longing also gives a sensual layer to the work.
BF: Because of the particular way you make collages, there also seems
to potentially be some indebtedness towards formalism and perhaps even
1960s/70’s abstract painting. Is this an influence or is it because you
are Dutch and the Dutch are born with incredible design skills for some
reason?
RVB: No intentional influence. In a way the works are very formal,
they exist on their own and can be read by it’s construction. But there
is this other layer which deals more with story telling. This can be
seen when works are combined in books or exhibitions.
I grew up with dutch design and have a lot of respect for it’s
simplicity and clear appearance, this comes back in my work i think. But
being born with dutch design skills is also a handicap.…It’s is easy to
fall for the esthetics that I am are familiar with. And i have to force
myself to break with them now and then.
“The academy provided me with a safe space where there was room to make things go horribly wrong”.
BF: Collage for me is about the hand…the way it has layers, texture,
and the physical side of it…do you scan your collages and print them or
are they available as originals?
RVB: Now when I show my work it is mostly in books or as originals in
a frame. In the past years I did make prints of my work for
exhibitions, but i discovered that they cannot beat the real collage.
The original collage is very direct, you see the cuts, the folds, my
hands are there in a way. The photo has been damaged, transformed, and
it is clear that there is no way back. This all adds to the work and I
think is necessary to see. You can see it is a built-up image, a
construction, but at the same time your brain sees a photo and takes it
in as reality.
BF: Do you have plans to work in three-dimensional modes of
representation, perhaps leaving the paper base to look at installation
of sculpture?
RVB: At the moment i have no plans for that. The two dimensions of
the photo are still very intriguing to me. The objects appearing in many
of my collages still deal with three dimensional space, but within the
limits of the flat layers. I have started working this year on bigger
collages in which the different objects interact with each other. For
this I use enlargements of found material and add layers of cutout
shapes of painted paper. This is a new way of working, much more
complicated than the small pieces. All objects relate to one another and
it feels like arranging a room with sculptures.
MARK BARONE 
MARINA DERVAN
BRENDA COOPER 
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