ABOUT
Wouter Huis (Oosterbroek, 1974) is a Dutch visual artist who works in different media. Or rather: he places a medium (or mediator) in between what we see and how we see, directing the gaze towards things that normally do not found themselves in the centre of attention but that are always, unobtrusively there in the architecture that surrounds us: the corner of a room, the curb of a street or a covered heap of construction waste in a park.
By doing so –scanning spaces and situations- he also places the focus on the medium as such, whether a camera or something else. During Glocal Affairs (Maastricht, 2008) for instance he infiltrated in the exhibition by placing an “illegal” title card next to piece of a wall that already happened to be partly painted in white and grey. This is White, This is Grey thus became two instant, ready-made monochrome paintings by a parasitizing artist, creating something out of nothing.
A more recent project, Performance #1 (2011), consisted of a vacant garage box that for the duration of the event- was turned into a cinema. The audience was invited to take a seat, facing the electric door which was at some point opened to reveal a view into a particularly uninteresting street. This street, and the very little amount of action in it (an occasional car or person passing by) was thereby transferred into both a screen and a new space. Likewise the people inside became participants in a strange and quiet performance.
It is precisely this state in between the something and the nothing that seems to fascinate Huis. Besides his current residency at the postgraduate program Transmedia in Brussels he is also working in the small Dutch town of Hoensbroek where he runs a project space called Greylight Projects.'
text: Nienke Vijlbrief, P///AKT, Amsterdam
-
Wouter Huis shifts the limits of mental and architectural space, the borders of private and public space, delving into the elusiveness of almost-invisible ‘random’ details, such as the “touchy” pairing of corners, or the ambiguity of black matter. Huis creates minimal objects, interactive (video) installations, photographs and (performative) screenings, and makes interventions in exhibitions and public spaces. He questions (un)conscious methods of categorization, (re)presentation, projection, inversion, contradiction, coincidence and literary/shifting by focusing on small and (so-called) objective changes in space.
Wouter Huis saddles up the viewer with the almost-nothingness of seemingly unimportant details, departing from artistic research as an intuitive/materialized and medialized site-specific (re)action that enters into dialogue with old-school minimalism and conceptualism on the one hand, and on the other, with the cultural, political, scientific and social meanings that are projected onto environments, spaces and onto contemporary art and its ‘exhibition’. Wouter Huis’ eye for detail is often mixed with some subtle humour which doesn’t collapse into sarcasm or cynism, nor does it descend to the (re)creation of socially/politically (in)correct identities.
The titles refer to a (self-)critical playfulness between (the loss of) gesture and concept (as in, ‘object/subject’): What is art without you (2008), No ideas, just blankets (2008), Possible ideas covered with blankets (2008), Something with stripes (2009), Getting Nowhere (2010), Found Monuments (2010), Mind The Gap (2011) and Plaats Delict (2011).
In his video-work Presentation (2011), a representation of a performative non-action in a garage, it is not clear whether he exhibits a bored / fascinated public to the rare passengers that may pass by in cars, on bicycles, or on foot, or whether he is rather displaying the banality/fascination of an art that is presenting details of street-life to the public. It could be both.
Whence the questions: Is the world boring / fascinating? Are you boring / fascinating? Am I boring / fascinating? Are we all boring / fascinating? Is art boring / fascinating? Are exhibitions/texts on art boring/fascinating? Are projections boring/fascinating? Is silence boring / fascinating? Is talking boring / fascinating? Or when exactly, and for whom, are subjects and their objects boring/fascinating, and does this in fact matter or not at all? Wouter Huis doesn’t give answers, instead he shows the paradox of possible superficial simplicities, possible complexities, and their subtle details, in an environmental/spatialised image which may be imagined, or not. This is never a promise.
Huis confronts the artist and the viewer with both non-critical and critical attitudes, which ask both too little and too much of art(ists) and their public. As if he is trying to reinvent over and over again the question: ‘when it is (not) enough?’, that always triggers another question: ‘for who is what (not) enough?’ Wouter Huis has worked as both artist and curator, and he makes of his modest attitude an artistic/curatorial pretention which may (or may not) confront narrative (re)constructions and architectural narratives that are sometimes too arrogant, sometimes too modest.
This is where a (self-)critical and (hyper-)relative attitude meet the almost-impossibility of an ephemeral kind of beauty, (un)covering in the process its dirty sides. Are human beings and their objectives really ‘(sub)-conscious?’, he seems to ask. Contemporary art is - at certain moments – (un)like Contemporary art, but also (un)like the shifted representation of reality-particles. The photographs of the series Triple X (2011), for instance, show three crosses placed over three blank billboards. All the promotional material has been made absent by the advertisers themselves, as if they agreed with a certain kind of artistic attitude and had decided to say ‘no’ to promotional bullshit, though probably without making this link (but who knows?). Wouter Huis has just photographed this particular detail that he discovered in the underground landscape. Even then, this can’t be called a classical representation of a particular reality, but seems rather to be an artistic gesture, maybe even an aesthetics that is escaping its own aesthetizing effect.
It shows the disappearance of a reality by carrying (for) its presence a little differently. Sometimes ‘it’ does indeed happen somewhere, which is more to do with fascination, than with boredom.
text: Sofie van Loo
* 2012
Sonic Masters (H)ear, Heerlen
Supermarket Stockholm
Mobi.tmp NP3, Groningen
Re: Artfair, Rotterdam
For Real program at the International Film Festival, Rotterdam
* 2011
Nightlight at Greylight Projects, Hoensbroek
Allmost Cinema Festival, Ghent
The Garden, Makershuis, Den Bosch
Recidence at QO-2, Brussels
TestLab at V2, Rotterdam
Summercam at Timelab, Ghent
TransGradExhib, Transmedia exhibition, Brussels
Le Double, Brussels
No Space Left exhibition, Brussels
Plaats Delict, public space Heerlen
Garage L’Olivier, Brussels
* 2010
The power of silence, Schunck Heerlen
Meeting Istanbul, Technical Universitie Istanbul
Dreaming of a point at which parallel lines converge, Le Bras, Brussels
The Academy Strikes Back, Sint Lukas Gallerie, Brussels
Passing Time, Schutterspark, Brunssum
Carte Blance, Roepean, Ottersum
Sifres, Greylight Projects, Hoensbroek
* 2009
MeetFactory, /Prague
* 2008
Dirty Projection / Stadslab, Sittard
What is art without you, HEDAH / Maastricht (solo)
Panic Room, KuS, Heerlen (solo)
Residence / KuS, Heerlen
SkyBox, Amsterdam (solo)
LFTFLexhibition / Chielerie, Amsterdam
* 2007
Supermarket Art Fair / Stockholm
Residence / Hallefors, Sweden
Private Property / Onomatopee, Eindhoven
* 2006
Wild beaming / Sign, Groningen
Gallery Life Bomb / Berlin
Berliner Kunstsalon, Berlin / P/////AKT, Amsterdam
Terrortory, Muu Gallery, Helsinki /
Beam Gallery (Beam Systems), Amsterdam /
* 2005
Safe de Flat, Zwolle /
Art for Sail, Amsterdam /
* 2004
Kunstencentrum, Hengelo /
Kortsluiting / Arteffects, Arnhem /
Ki-osk / Salon, Amsterdam /
* before 2003
De Fabriek, Eindhoven
art manifestation, Bergen op Zoom
Gallery Germinahof, Sterksel
Gallery "De Permanente", Groningen
Project-space “Haarlemmerstraat 10”, Amsterdam
Gallery "Het Langhuis", Zwolle
Gallery "ROEM", Rotterdam
The slide show, slide show, Gallery "ROEM" Rotterdam
Kunst Ruimte, Kampen
Kasteel Groeneveld, Baarn
Publications:
2010 Tijdsverdrijf / catalog
2010 Ansicht exemplar / poster collection
2010 Tablet Magazine
2009 Wednesday Meatloafday / catalog
2008 Inkijk exemplaar / catalog
2007 LFTFL Magazine
2004 Kortsluiting, Arteffects / catalog
2004 Tablet Magazine
2004 Bouw en Wow / catalog
Education:
2009- Transmedia (MA), Sint-Lukas Brussel, Postgraduate Program in Arts+Media+Design.
1992-1998 Constantijn Huygens (BA), Kampen
Other activities:
2009-present Greylight Projects, Hoensbroek (NL)
2009 Curator, Wednesday Meatloaf day, MeetFactory, Prague
2001-2008 Member of P///AKT, Amsterdam (NL)
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials on these pages are copyrighted. No part of these pages, either text or images may be used for any purpose other than personal use, unless explicit authorisation is given by Wouter Huis. Therefore reproduction, modification, storage in a retrieval system or retransmission, in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical or otherwise, for reasons other than personal use, is strictly prohibited without prior written permission.