nca | nichido contemporary art

JAN VAN OOST
"il sogno di Dante"
Dante's sleep

nca | nichido contemporary art is pleased to inform that we are going to present the exhibition by the Fleming artist, Jan Van Oost. This show will be his first solo exhibition in Japan.

Van Oost, who finds his own linguistic antecedents in the "symbolism", focuses on the presence of death, and represents it. The concept of death is central to his work, accompanied by rites of mourning, as a warning to accept our finite human condition. Due to genetic engineering people live longer lives, and with this in mind, He denounces science through pregnant forms, memory, feeling, femininity, sexuality, and the past

One of the center points of this exhibition is a black woman lying in a corner (1993) This lifesize female figure made from plaster, dressed in a black dress. Long black hair covers her face, appears like a frozen moment of a theatrical sequentiality. Is she alive and dead? Is she in a part of a violent ritual or is she enacting her own sleep
pregnant of a sensual ,but gothic nightmare ,The materials used ooze sensuality ,yet her pose is of one of a intense discomfort. She objectifies and excides almost witchlike power, being in a part of a atmosphere of anxiety and pleasure at the same time. Further works are two early mirror pieces; a golden tainted mirror is dramatically shot in the centre (1987), and a Venetian mirror ,Le Coup de Don(1987) ,installed with a butcher knife and a band of lace. Jan Van Oost gives image to the dialectic of the Fall and of the Ideal. Conceptual art is not supposed to venture into the realm of the private moods without disqualifying them theoretically. Van Oost｡'s work breaks here the rules repetitively without ever comprising the integrity of historic references. With Salom(1990) the artist takes pleasure in the ｡ｰcold majesty of the sterile woman｡" of which Baudelaire speaks That majesty which engenders only a distratrous desire that will never be satisfied. The silky and the icy, the wavy and the smooth, the simulated and the flagrant, are terms that oppose, respond to, and complete one another .One can always recognize a struggle against windmills, the impossible heart of a improbable Dulcin_e The spirit of the cavaliers of long ago, the sharp and villein humor of the Dandy.
With large works on paper (from 2005 on) and the tortured heads kissing (plaster) Van Oost's -voyage" reached a turning point. First known internationally for his enigmatic Donna Nera (from 1990) anonymous and always coverd with long sensual black hair and the Dandyesk objects in the 80's, these works from the last years evoke on a brutal but also magnetic way Dante`s well known Nightmare with Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Baudelaire as trustful travel companions Van Oost knocks hard on the Gates of Hell , or are they maybe the Doors of Perception , William Blakes so beautiful describes
These large drawings show dismembered bodies, skeletons with striking sculls and pulverized ,cut-up anatomies. Drawn in oils, pencil and ink, these drawings expand on a previous project, the Baudelaire Suite, more than a thousand drawings compiled in a book of the same name. With their imposing, disturbing presence, they are similar to both Antonin Artaud｡'s ink drawings and those of Hans Holbein in his alphabet of the Dead. These raw images remind us of our mortal destiny and our own bodies Van Oost represents human figures whose flesh is fallen off. Thus bodies are on fire inside. Their features on the paper seem to twist and fold under the surface as if to erase any possibility of identification.
His work reveals a vision and a manner of situating his subjects characterized by extreme detachment, as well as a baroque approach, in the contemporary sense of the word. These baffling tumultuous pieces are striking powerful as with de Kooning｡'s Women, their physical maelstrom and disjunctive quality confounds our gaze.
Van Oost plays with the history of European culture. He destabilizes our vision of the human body, in life and in death, with great sensitivity. His intense work is like a X-ray of our inner being. It is also a mirror held up to our deepest questions, for us, living in the fast lane of this post-modern world.

Van Oost says: "Irony is the strategic finesse inherent in my works, the complex ambiguity between horror and seduction between reality and fantasy. Art reveals things that are not usually within one's consciousness range｡" and he adds:"my works is a mental theatre which refers to secrets, a project and a conception of life. Autobiographic, but without "biography", viscerally baroque: a cocktail of human documents."

Artists profile;
Born in Deinze, Belgium 1961. Lives and works in Ghent.

Selected exhibition;
1985 : Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (D) / 1986 : Paleis voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels(B), Foundation De Appel, Amsterdam(NL), 4Artists Space, New York(USA) / 1987 :Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneve(CH) / 1988 : Aperto, Biennale de Venezia(I) / 1989 : Paleis voor Schone Kunsten, Brussels (B) / 1991 : Kunstverein Dusseldorf(D) / 1992 : Salzburg Kunstverein, Salzburg (A) / 1993 : Teatro Carlo Felice, Genova (I) / 1994 : Musse d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (FR), The Institute for Contemporary Art P.S.I., New York (USA) / 1996 : Fuori Uso, Pescara (I) / 1999 : Le Magasin, Grenoble (FR), Centre d'art Neuchatel (S) / 2001 : De Beyerd, Breda(NL), ContiCasale Monferata (I) / 2003 : Museum of Contemporary Art, Rouen (FR) / 2005 : Bi_nnale de Beijing, Belgian Art (CH), Maison Musique,Rivoli(I), nca | nichido contemporary art, Tokyo(JA), MMKK Museum Moderner Kunst Karnten, Klagenfurt(A).

Published the book
"Drawings from the Baudelaire Cycle - The first period" 2002.