Artwork of the month - video (56 sec)
Stèle - Telling Stories
Year | 2021 |
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Size | 52 cm x 32 cm x 14 cm |
Materials | black clay, ceramic glaze |
Options | / |
Edition | 1/1 |
For Sale | Yes, contact our gallery Fred&Ferry (Antwerp, BE) |
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Since 2019, Robbert&Frank Frank&Robbert have been documenting the world and their artistic practice through drawings engraved into clay. These clay tablets are all the same size and form a pictographic series that steadily continues to grow. The tablets are presented either individually or all together as a series, mounted on the wall using the accompanying F- and R-screws.
This first stele in their oeuvre represents a new step in the same sculptural process. The two-dimensional aspect of the clay tablet remains but is reinforced by the underlying support to become an independent, three-dimensional object in space. The curved top breaks with the severe rectangular format of the previous tablets and refers formally to stelae – Etruscan, Egyptian and ancient Meso-American in particular – whose rounded upper sections refer to the cosmos / the sky / the sun.
Historically, steles were most often used as monuments, grave markers or as a means to identify a special location.
This stele by Frank&Robbert, rather than documenting a performance or an action, tells a symbolic story of its own. Created in the period when both artists became fathers, this stele is an attempt to represent their feelings surrounding fatherhood. We see two figures holding an object that seems to represent constellations in the sky. This object is given to the serpent – a water creature that symbolises transformation. We are all part of a larger cycle and each generation passes on what it considers important.
This stele is a contemporary monument, as it were, that seeks to forge a connection across the boundaries of time and space.
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ARTWORKS
Theater
Table Dialogues | 2021 - ongoing | |
Don't we deserve grand human projects that give us meaning? | 2017 - 2021 | |
To Break - The window of opportunity | 2014 - 2015 |
Performances, Actions, Rituals
(Solo) Exhibitions
Magic Mirrors - Ceramic Shrine
Fred&Ferry Gallery, Antwerp (BE) |
2021 | |
Breadcrumbs
Be-Part, Waregem (BE) |
2020 | |
Dr. Valcke
Water Clinic, Kortrijk (BE) |
2015 |
Drawings
Other sculptures & installations
Other video works & projects
PONG
video installation |
2014 | |
Faces
video installation |
2014 | |
The Gilded Child
video |
2010 | |
A Documentary
video |
2010 |
Other prints, books & editions
Clay tablets
Hugging | 2020 | |
Helping Hand | 2020 | |
Lunch | 2020 | |
To Break (theatre scene) | 2020 | |
Gemini Ritual | 2019 | |
Mask Totem Pole | 2019 | |
Ritual Fire | 2019 |
Shrines
Archetypes
Sculpture |
2019 - 2021 | |
Janus Self-Portrait
Sculpture |
2021 | |
Magic Mirrors - Shrine
Sculpture |
2021 | |
Shredding Sorrows
Sculpture |
2019 | |
To Break
Sculpture |
2021 |
Go away sorrow of the world
Suitcase projects
Weakness is provocative
Surveillance
Ceramics & Wood |
2020 | |
Guns
installation (2014) / artist publication (2015) |
2014 - 2015 | |