The narration
in the works of Canadian artist Dianna Frid (crox 77 & crox 184),
especially the series shown during her second solo project, is made by a
labyrinthian layer of signs. A layer of dust that changes in dark and bright
blue, and the blue, bright and dark, becoming dust again, dust thru which the
artist steps with a slightly narrative urge - the urge to be clearly understood
without selling too much of the untold truth.
Dianna Frids work is a
narrative labyrinth of repetitive fragments of images; a tangled pattern of
signals and signs. The human mind: a jumble, a labyrinth. Occasionally the
works literally are like patterns: a virtual constellation. The maze is for
Frid also a purely technical matter, even apart from the abundance of pictorial
material which she seems to share with Kahlo: the meditative core of working
with needle and thread. A process which – I try to imagine – must be exhausting
and protracted. It reminds me of Ariadne, without being able to point at a
clear connection. I’m overcome with
indecision. No image, I seem to think, has a meaning
that can be interpreted seperate from the mass of other images.
In the case of Philippe
Vandenberg the labyrinth is the artist himself, and by extension the whole world.
The oeuvre of Jan De Cock too is labyrinthine, each step an extreme. De
monolithic books he publishes overflowing with historic labyrintism; the
labyrinth an arena where fighter and minotaur in the end share a single
identity.
Ward Denys is playing a
game in the labyrinth of his memories of places and things. Hotel rooms. The idea to cast in concrete a map or remembered map
of hotel rooms is absolutely Perecian.
A labyrinth is everywhere.
Even something stupid and insane as the number of visitors. And then, there is
the Peers-labyrinth, a maze for experts, a labyrinth in which the chairman of
the crox-board – a labyrinth in his own right - blindly finds his way. A labyrinth of
contradictory feelings, but who represents all emotions? Who? Someone? No
one? Everybody?
Knowing your dossiers. Again
one of those labyrinths. The bylaws, to mention another labyrinth. The letter of
the law is said to be concrete and in the best of all cases even transparant,
but no labyrinth with less feeling for crystal clear transparancy than the
letter of the law.
The artist also takes part
in this game: ever colon counts. Every shadow a triumph or a trap. The observer
has to choose. There are parameters and parking meters,
ubiquitous today, but just as well there could have been viewing meters.
Someone parking in front
of a Raveel pays a set fee, and the middleman collects. Another of
those labyrinths: the middlemen. The intentions. The half truths.
