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Tangible absence
Paul Casaer at Koraalberg HOME MADE GALAXY
It has been some years since Paul Casaer produced sculptures. To be more
precise, it dates back to 1998, seemingly lightyears in an artist’s existence,
but still, here they are once again. In the meantime, photography had been his
medium. The photo book in particular, because Paul Casaer’s images need to be
read in sequences. Just as in a movie, the things he shows are as important as
that which he does not show; the ‘off’-image of the framing, the ‘in-between’
image of the editing.
What is true for the pictures also stands for the sculptures. Here, too, the
images appear in sequences; the presence of a frame constitutes the ‘outside’
images and ensures the confrontation with invisible ‘in-between’ images. Some of
the sculptures are only frames.
The enlarged slide frames on the floor still hold images; images that in seven
steps zoom into a sky full of stars – one light-year for each step; staggering
speed in the void. But from the ‘Leftovers’ against the wall – the frames which
hold together the pieces of the model builder’s boats, airplanes or trains– all
the contents seem to have disappeared.
Radical recycling: that which others discard is being cultivated. The barely
tangible is being saved. Or the opposite: what others are saving, is being
shown. One hundred dollar bills together form a garland. The potlatch, the
cruelty of the feast: nothing is too much not to be used, or not to be exposed,
or not to be given.
The dollar garlands, hung on fine birch branches, form a whole together with a
cast iron, bulbous sculpture on the floor: an enlarged bell, like those worn
around the neck of a dog, a cat or another pet. A trivial thing which generally
remains invisible, hidden in the fleece, but always audible; an enlarged void,
or the immaterial materialised.
Tangible absence: model construction frameworks from the dustbin, slide frames
out of their protective box, money from the inside of a wallet, a bell from the
fleece. Everything is equally concrete; also that which we do not see. This way
of treating and using objects and materials has something nonchalant about it.
And on the other hand, maybe not: too much care has been spent on the details in
the finishing and the materials. The extreme weight of the cast iron bell; the
milled curves of the slide frames; the chain of dollar bills and paperclips
which are only recognised at close range; the remains of paint on the frames:
all are signals of the artist referring to the material that he is using. To
look into the void is to seek details.
The objects are recognizable and the scale is man-sized. A bell the size of a
beach ball; a garland right above the head; slide frames at arm's length and
‘Leftover’ as a doorway in: this is an exhibition you pass through like Alice in
Wonderland. No untouchable icons are present, as with the Pop Art of Warhol or
the Überkitsch of Koons: these are objects with their own function. No
perfection in details, but perfection in the faults.
Tangible and yet not: in the middle of the floor lies a Plexiglas box: an
aquarium made of plastic. No water, but air in this hermetically sealed space.
And on the bottom: a 1 and 99 zeros. A vague number as a silent reference to the
light years which separate us from the stars in the slide frames right beside
them: a random binary logic. Always correct, or maybe not.
Pieter Van Bogaert in <H>ART nr. 12, 19 October 2006.
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