About
ALEXIS DESTOOP
° 1971, Kortrijk (BE)
Lives in Brussels (BE) and Sydney (AU)
Alexis Destoop’s work forms an ongoing investigation into the workings of the image.His multilayered constructions in photography, installation and film examine the component elements of storytelling, the experience of time and the processes of identification and memory.
Appropriating visual archetypes and genre conventions, his work questions, reconfigures and short-circuits the acquired meanings associated with them.
His practice originates from photography and is influenced by his experience in the performing arts as well as his studies in philosophy. He often works collaboratively, involving writers, performers and musicians.
Referencing classical representations of the human figure, his earlier works focus on notions of duration and performativity, as exemplified by the 3-channel video installations With Usura (2001 / 2004) and Ecce (2003).
Destoop’s first film works – I’m Happy Men (2005), and Pandora (2007) – investigate narrative construction and the status of fiction through formal experiments that strip the narrative of plot and obstruct identification with character.
The 2-channel video-installation Dwelling (2006-2009) is a meditation on “place” that suggests the bare outlines of a story: an event haunts the desolate setting without ever being revealed.
In recent years landscape has become his primary subject matter, which he treats with all its stratified meanings and histories. What distinguishes Destoop’s work is his interest in the artificiality of landscape: not as a natural object but as a thoroughly human construct.
With the ongoing research project 4 Directions of Heaven, he re-visits a series of archetypal yet “precarious” environments whose very status has undergone fundamental changes in recent history.
Articulating a number of present-day cultural paradoxes and dissonances, relying on speculative narratives, he re-actualizes the genre of allegory as a mode investigation and critique. The project focuses the landscapes of the so-called Anthropocene as problematic and paradoxical expressions of the contemporary sublime and as markers of the present-day ideology of global capitalism.
EDUCATION
2000-2002 Post-graduate / MA in Fine Arts at Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts
Contemporains, Tourcoing, France
1993-1997 MA in Philosophy, University of Ghent, Belgium
Thesis on Gilles Deleuze’s concept of immanence, Dept. of Epistemology
1991-1993 Undergraduate in Art History, University of Ghent, Belgium
1991-1992 Photography KASK, Ghent, Belgium
WORK (selection)
Film
« northern drift » (working title), in development, 2012-2015
« heroine », 20 min, direction, dance film on a choreography by Arco Renz , 2013
« kairos» , 35 min, direction & production, scenario in collaboration with Aaron Schuster, 2009-2012
« pandora », 13 min, scenario & direction, 2006-2007
« i’m happy men », 21 min, direction, scenario in collaboration with Benjamin Verdonck, 2004-2005
Video / Installation
« Occcupancy », photographic installation, 2015
« 8 seasons », 4 videos after XVIth century paintings on music by John Cage, 2012
« Compendium on the future of time », single-screen installation version of Kairos, 2012
« 4 directions of heaven – v1» , 3-channel video installation, 2010
« Unheim », site specific 2-channel video installation, 2010
« Dwelling», 2-channel video installation, 2006-2009
« La facture d’électricité », videoclip for Miossec, 2006
« Salon », single channel video for Manah Depauw’s Magic Box, 2004
« Ecce», 3-channel video installation, 2003
« Quod », single-channel video, 2002
« Auton », single channel video, 2002
« Adverse », video installation, 2002
« With Usura », 3-channel video installation, (2001-2004)
« I », sculptural installation, 2001
« x+x », single channel video, 2000
« trace mine longing », video installation, 2000
Theatre / Performance
rebecca september, « Knockout », dance-performance, scenography, 2004-2005
chahoula « Wraak », theatre play, scenography & video, 2003
the paul de chanel movement research group : « Slow Motion » movement research and workshop direction in collaboration with Alexander Baervoets , 2003
« very private hotel room », internet performance, Nadine,Brussels, 2001
fyke « B-O.1 » performance, after R. Goetz, in collaboration with Kris Verdonck & Arnaud Jacobs, 2000
fyke « To eat me(at) », performance, after O. Van Woensel, in collaboration with Kris Verdonck & Arnaud Jacobs, 1999
de onderneming « Suzanna Andler » theatre play by M. Duras, dramaturgy & scenography, 1999
fyke « Der Müll, die Stadt, der Tod» theatre play by R.W. Fassbinder, dramaturgy & direction in collaboration with Kris Verdonck, 1998-1999
Exhibitions / screenings (selection)
« Art-ivism, group exhibition, MuseumCultuur, CC Strombeek / SMAK, Apr. 2015
« Aesthetics After Finitude », Exhibition & Conference, UNSW, Sydney, Feb. 2015
« Field Meeting », conference & performance program, Asia Society Museum, New York, Oct. 2014
« Grenzen/Loos », group exhibition, Galerie Emergent, Veurne, Dec. 2013
« Heroine », premiere screening, Les Brigittines Art Centre, Brussels, Nov. 2013
« I am the Cosmos » , screening program , The Onion Cellar, Hanoi, Vietnam, Dec. 2012
« 8 Seasons » screening performance, in collaboration with the ensemble B’Rock, Flagey Brussels & Musee des Beaux-Arts, Lille, Oct. 2012
« Kairos », Opening Festival de l’imaginaire, film screening, Flagey, Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 2012
« All our Relations », 18th Biennale of Sydney, group exhibition, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, Australia, June 2012
« Cantus Firmus », group exhibition, W139, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, April 2012
« Kairos », film + installation, Buda & Broelmuseum, Next Festival, Kortrijk, Belgium, Nov 2010
« Nightshifters », group exhibition, PSpace, Carriageworks, Sydney Australia, Nov 2010
« d/Art on Screen », group exhibition, Tweed Rivers Gallery, Australia, Oct 2010
« Almost Cinema », music & film performance, Ghent International Film Festival, Vooruit, Oct 2009
« Pittoresk – neue Perspektiven aus das Landschaftsbild », group exhibition, Museum MARTa, Museum of Contemporary Art, Herford, Germany, Oct 2009
« Beyond the Picturesque », group exhibition, SMAK Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent, Belgium, Apr 2009
« Dans la nuit, des images », group exhibition, Grand Palais, Paris, France, Dec 2008
« Dwelling », solo exhibition, Podspace, Newcastle, Australia, Oct 2008
« Evidence », solo exhibition, Benedengalerij cK, Kortrijk, Belgium, Feb 2008
« Pandora», festival Budafest, Buda Kunstencentrum, Kortrijk, Belgium, Nov 2007
« Territoires de l’image», group exhibition, Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing, France, Oct 2007
« Light Play », finissage event, group exhibition Z33 Art Centre, Hasselt, Belgium, Jan 2007
« City Sonics 06 », festival for new media, Mons, Belgium June-July 2006
« Conjugaisons», group exhibition, Galerie Le Carré, Lille, France, June 2006
« Something Raw 06 », performance, festival, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Nov 2006
« Utopia », group exhibition, festival Beeldenstorm, Kortrijk, Belgium, Dec 2005
« Courtisane », film, festival for new media, Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium, May 2005
« Cinema Zed », film, in the context of the program ‘film & theatre’, Stuk, Leuven, Belgium Mar 2005
« dans@tack06/04 », installations, performance festival, Kortrijk, June 2004
« The Great swallow » photographic series in the context of the intervention by Benjamin Verdonck, Kunstenfestivaldesarts , Brussels, Belgium, May 2004
« De donderdagen », installation, performance and visual arts event, De Singel, Antwerp, Belgium, 2004
« Something raw 04 », installation, performance festival, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2004
« Spectra » installation, performance festival Maasmechelen, Belgium 2003
« Protocol », solo exhibition, Iselp, Brussels, Belgium November 2002
« Glitch », group exhibition, ArtBox, Waregem, Belgium Sep – Nov 2002
« Panorama3 », group exhibition, Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing, France 2002
« Parcours2 », installations, festival Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium 2002
« Panorama2 », group exhibition Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing , France, 2001
« Marauder », collective exhibition by the FYKE collective , Nadine, Bruxelles, 2001
« incamera#5 », installation, Nadine, Bruxelles, 2000
Texts / publications (selection)
« Kairos – The set », artist’s book, volume1 in a series of 4, Mer Paper Kunsthalle, 2014 (in production)
« Micro, Contact, Strings and Things », Margarita Production 2003-2013, Mer Paper Kunsthalle, 2013
« All our Relations », exhibition catalogue, ed. Catherine De Zegher & Gerald MacMaster, 18th Biennale of Sydney, 2012
« Under the influence », interview by Ian Mundell, Flanders Image magazine, # 21, 2011
« Nightshifters », exhibition catalogue, Ross Gibson & Bec Dean (ed.) PSpace, Sydney, 2010
« Pittoresk », exhibition catalogue, MARTa Herford, 2009
« Beyond the Picturesque »», exhibition catalogue, SMAK, Frank Maes & Steven Jacobs (Ed.), 2009
« Territoires de l’image », exhibition catalogue, Le Fresnoy, M. Van Dooren (ed.), 2007
« L”invitation au voyage », image intervention and essay on photography, Etcetera #106, 2007
« Usurious Logics », essay, Dominiek Hoens in ‘What are you doing ? », texts on videoart, Jan Van Eyck Academie, ed. Robbrecht Vanderbeken 2005
« The great Swallow », photographic series on the work by Benjamin Verdonck (Ed.), 2005
« Exposer l’image en mouvement », essais, Anne-Laure Chamboissier, Philippe Franck, Eric Van Essche(ed) La Lettre Volée, Bruxelles, 2004
« Constructing contemporary dance », Sarma (Ed.), after a colloquium curated by Aisthesis, Research centre for the study of language and body, University of Antwerp, 2004
« Het kei zal zich wel teren », essay, Elke Van Campenhout in Etcetera #87, 2003
« Panorama 3 », exhibition catalogues, Christophe Khim (Ed.), Le Fresnoy, 2002
« Panorama 2 », exhibition catalogue, Le Fresnoy, 2001