Axel Vervoordt Gallery is pleased to present the second exhibition of Angel Vergara in the Patio Gallery at Kanaal. Vergara will present oil paintings on canvas, in addition to work on glass and assemblage work. This exhibition will partly overlap with Manifesta 13 in Marseille, where Vergara will present Les belles idées reçues, an installation consisting of video art works. Similar video art works were presented by Vergara in 2017 at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels, the previous year at the Axel Vervoordt Gallery Hong Kong and in 2011 at the Belgian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
With his video art works, Vergara poetically questions the role of the artist and the economy of the work of art. One can see how whether or not recognisable scenes originating in broad range of media are slowly painted over, resulting in the layer of paint manifesting itself as a fleece over the moving image. As a result, the works are charged with a specific temporality, through the constant review of their structure and condition, subject to the connections with the colours of paint and the underlying reality. Vergara did the same by choosing reality itself as the subject, by registering the contours of passers-by with paint on glass plates. The result stands up as an autonomous work of art, whether it is a digital construction, a painting mounted as a film or a film mounted as a painting. In both cases the result cannot be dissociated from its decisive performative character.

Artists: Angel Vergara