Fred Penelle & Legoman: Mécaniques discursives

21 januari - 2 februari 2013
Fred Penelle & Legoman: Mécaniques discursives

Audiovisual installation

This installation project has developed out of the encounter of the engraver Fred Penelle with the video artist Yannick Jacquet (Legoman). The artwork Mecaniques discursives is a mixture of engraving and video projection representing a sort of machinery of the absurd and the poetic unfolding across walls like some exquisite skeleton using the principle of a chain reaction as its starting point.

Frédéric Penelle has been going to great lengths for a number of years to release engraving from its traditional context and "beautiful paper". He uses his installations to breathe new life into engraving by moving it off a path that is too well trodden. As regards Yannick Jacquet's work, this is marked by a desire to step outside of traditional projection formats and put video into space. The main tool is audiovisual performances, installations and stage design. Their shared desire to leave the beaten path of their respective disciplines brought them together in this project.

During their residency at iMAL, the artists will work with the musician Matthieu Safatly for the musical arrangement of their installation.

The artists

Fred Penelle

"In just under ten years, Frédéric Penelle (Brussels 1973), winner of the Art contest prize at the end of 2007, has given engraving a sudden burst of energy through his novel use of it in a way that is fundamentally original, malicious and as funny as it is serious. The installation of each exhibition places on a wall a swarm of characters and objects which mix, either play- fully or seriously, times, epochs, drawing, paining, black, colour, old images and whatever else besides, to tell, not one, but a thousand tangled tales in which each will recognise his own according to his imagination, what he has lived through, his dreams or concerns. In a heterogeneous set astonishingly coherent in its linear weirdness like a frieze, starting from a personal my- thology that brings together images known to all it holds up a portrait of the world that is surprising yet familiar at the same time. And this arrangement that is playful, amusing, inventive, sometimes threatening and also tragic in its device, constantly gives the impression that it might set itself in motion as if it was a vast comedy put on by actors who bear a strange resemblance to us. Might it be possible that we are taking part unawares? Very inspired and convincing." (C.L.)
(la libre belgique 16/01/08)

Yannick Jacquet (Legoman) 

Born in Geneva in 1980, Yannick lives and works in Brussels. Graphic designer by training, he now mainly devotes himself to moving images. His work is characterised by a desire to step outside of traditional projection formats and locate video in space. It mainly comes in the form of audiovisual performances, installations and stage design. His work is often in situ and is strongly influenced by questions connected to architecture. He regularly works with a number of artists and more particularly with those under the label AntiVJ where he is one of the founding members.

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