Monique Thomaes

1995

1995 | blau-äugig

by

blauäugig

1994/95, 2 parts, each 15’ colour, dv
première: CC Scharpoord Knokke, Belgium 1995
Multimedia

Antique sculptures photographed in Berlin’s Pergamon museum. These photos became the „raw material” for various media combinations: a photographic installation, as well as a slide projection and a video work.

blauäugig
… back/repeat: The possibility that the human figure could enter in Thomaes’ work was never excluded. This role was always filled by the observer of her work who, in a 1:1 ratio, could find himself reflected in the sculptures and installations. In the works dealing with room space as well, it is the visitor’s living, moving body which produces reflections or silhouettes in the light. On the level of image creation, it is in the first place the photography of sculpture that offers a primary, static – and twice reproduced, therefore mediated – picture of the human being. In Berlin’s Pergamon museum Monique Thomaes photographed antique sculptures. These photos became – as is characteristic for her method of procedure – the “raw materials” for various media defamiliarizations and combinations. For the installation “Blauäugig” (1995), she transformed her initial working material into photographic details, actual reflections as well as video films and slide projections. From these documents of anonymous sculptures, she deleted the eyes and the area about them – a motive similar to that used later in the video “Couchée”. Thus the eyes of the stony figures are blank; they do not offer an observant glance, but rather its omission. The eyes of the photograph are shadowed zones. In the center of the picture is, nevertheless, the distance between the eyes, that point between the eyebrows which leads to the forehead and which, in the condition of tension-filled concentra-tion, forms into wrinkles. It is that imaginary point where an exchange of the senses between interior and exterior, between vision and cognition, becomes focused, and where projections from interior and exterior images intersect. This point gives hardly anything away visually and it is considerably less attractive than the eyes; for one intuitively searches for eye contact with one’s peer even if that peer is a centuries-old sculpture in photographic reproduction. First comes an intimate jolt caused by confrontation with the set-back eye cavities and absent eye contact of the sculpture which thereby forces one’s glance to wander to the forehead, a surface formed by light and thereby giving it only a small degree of depth. Like a blind mirror this image throws back the observer’s intruding stare, tossing it back behind his forehead. Vision meets the visionless. A short-circuit, a silent implosion. The body as a sculpted, objective given have sought refuge in the work of Monique Thomaes. It has retreated back to the level of its representation, the image, and has revealed itself as a doubtful witness of its very self. Doubts are existentially connected with symbolization. The possibilities of manipulation offered by the procedures in technical image making, allow Thomaes, on the most diversified levels of visual presentation, to manifest these doubts (both self and media reflexive) in a visual form.

1995 | au lieu de

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au lieu de

Parochialkirche Berlin 1995
installation display cases / blue / white glass / natural light

 

This installation in the “Parochialkirche” consists of twelve empty museum display cases in front of the church’s windows. In each of them two blue tinted glass plates are placed which are covered by two transparent glass plates set at a certain angle. With the movement of the spectator and influenced by the changing light the reflections and refractions flow with the observer: a “light sculpture” showing the church’s whole architecture cast in a horizontal plane through the glass plates.

au lieu de
Moving light is also the basis for her creation in Berlin’s Parochialkirche. The light and structure of the gothic church windows are reflected in the glass display cases placed before the windows and in their blue glass bottoms; these reflections alter in appearance according to the time of day and weather conditions. Furthermore, this process is preserved in the display’s photographs. Superimposures and fade-out effects produce an image which above all documents the augmentation in light. It is not the sacred which stands in the foreground here, but rather the constructive process leading up to the attainment of this “light picture”. Laszlo Moholy Nagy’s light-room-modulator comes to mind; the difference in Thomaes’ case is that such a complex instrument is not required. Her work is slower and quieter. She requires the observation time, which is already predicated by the nature of the existing phenomena. Her work is the result of several stages of development. The installation is just as important as the photo resulting from it, or even as the final video work.

1995 | v-ivre

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v-ivre

1995, 2 parts, each 10’, b/w, dv
Galerie Bostoen, Kortrijk, Belgium 1996
Multimedia

 

Luk Lambrecht about the work
“The two ascetic videotapes show a ten minute sequence depicting inhalation and exhalation, taking place around the neck area of the artist.

The slowly moving, black and white self-portraits are, at first glance, not recognizable as such, but instead show a great similarity with abstract, three-dimensional texture. The video images are played back with a coarse grain; thereby results an aura of fundamental unfamiliarity and doubting concerning that which is perceived. Owing to effects of close-up’s, the pictures take on an incorporeal aspect and within the context of an art exhibition may be interpreted as gently rising, almost draped pictorial representations. They are forceful pictures because the observer is simultaneously aware of both video images; consequently life’s rhythm becomes distinctly conscious, an effect which is further emphasized by the occasional insertion of still-video pictures which thereby gives rise to short pauses during the run of the video.”

more:
Luk Lambrecht
Angelika Stepken

1995 | plaatsen / lieux / spaces part #01

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plaatsen / lieux / spaces part #01

lieux

1995, 3 parts, each 8’, b/w, dv
Première: CCNOA Brussels 2007
shooting place: Salzburg/Hallein 1995

A camera is statically pointed toward a large room. Gradually and successively the camera’s aperture is opened. Initially, the picture in the monitor reveals merely a narrow slit of light located at the lower edge, in appearance somewhat similar to a drawing placed upon a dark background. Slowly but surely the line fills out to a re-cognizable room volume, until ultimately in a glistening white this figure loses both its dimensions and contours and is reduced to an empty surface. An opening and a closing-up of the room/image to vision, a gentle process.
(Angelika Stepken in the book “the passage – monique thomaes” 1998)

A comment of Christoph Tannert in the catalogue “de passage”: What patience such a room needs!

 

more:
Brigitte Hammer
Angelika Stepken
Christoph Tannert

1995 | salzburg sonnig

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salzburg sonnig 28 grad

1995, 9’, b/w, dv
première: Salzburg, Hallein 1995

Observations of light and time: observing the gliding clouds from a defined point in a given space.

1995 | blau-äugig

by

blauäugig

1994/95, 2 parts, each 15’ colour, dv
première: CC Scharpoord Knokke, Belgium 1995
Multimedia

Antique sculptures photographed in Berlin’s Pergamon museum. These photos became the „raw material” for various media combinations: a photographic installation, as well as a slide projection and a video work.

 

blau-äugig
… back/repeat: The possibility that the human figure could enter in Thomaes’ work was never excluded. This role was always filled by the observer of her work who, in a 1:1 ratio, could find himself reflected in the sculptures and installations. In the works dealing with room space as well, it is the visitor’s living, moving body which produces reflections or silhouettes in the light. On the level of image creation, it is in the first place the photography of sculpture that offers a primary, static – and twice reproduced, therefore mediated – picture of the human being. In Berlin’s Pergamon museum Monique Thomaes photographed antique sculptures. These photos became – as is characteristic for her method of procedure – the “raw materials” for various media defamiliarizations and combinations. For the installation “Blauäugig” (1995), she transformed her initial working material into photographic details, actual reflections as well as video films and slide projections. From these documents of anonymous sculptures, she deleted the eyes and the area about them – a motive similar to that used later in the video “Couchée”. Thus the eyes of the stony figures are blank; they do not offer an observant glance, but rather its omission. The eyes of the photograph are shadowed zones. In the center of the picture is, nevertheless, the distance between the eyes, that point between the eyebrows which leads to the forehead and which, in the condition of tension-filled concentra-tion, forms into wrinkles. It is that imaginary point where an exchange of the senses between interior and exterior, between vision and cognition, becomes focused, and where projections from interior and exterior images intersect. This point gives hardly anything away visually and it is considerably less attractive than the eyes; for one intuitively searches for eye contact with one’s peer even if that peer is a centuries-old sculpture in photographic reproduction. First comes an intimate jolt caused by confrontation with the set-back eye cavities and absent eye contact of the sculpture which thereby forces one’s glance to wander to the forehead, a surface formed by light and thereby giving it only a small degree of depth. Like a blind mirror this image throws back the observer’s intruding stare, tossing it back behind his forehead. Vision meets the visionless. A short-circuit, a silent implosion. The body as a sculpted, objective given have sought refuge in the work of Monique Thomaes. It has retreated back to the level of its representation, the image, and has revealed itself as a doubtful witness of its very self. Doubts are existentially connected with symbolization. The possibilities of manipulation offered by the procedures in technical image making, allow Thomaes, on the most diversified levels of visual presentation, to manifest these doubts (both self and media reflexive) in a visual form.