hoolawhoop: 12.10

17.12.10

giants

Sigmar Polke, Höhere Wesen befehlen (Higher Beings Ordain), 1968

The pictures above are from Belgian photographer Geert Goiris. They are installation shots from his current exhibition at KIOSK (taken by Yana Foque). As part of a new edition of Gent Matinees, he will give a guided tour in KIOSK this Sunday at 4 PM. Right after that you also get the chance to get a tour around the Hisk Laureates exhibition in the Zwarte Zaal KASK, right next to KIOSK.

The serie 'Giants' show us black-and-white images of sequoia trees (also known as giant redwoods) that stand out against a white, cornerless space like dark surfaces, their monumental character reinforced by the fact that the sequoia is one of the oldest and tallest trees in the world. Goiris’ work demands slow observation, allowing the gaze to adapt time’s own pace in penetrating the rows of ancient trees and exploring the infinite horizons. Both fore- and background are shot with incredible focus. Goiris’ landscape shots are often made using a slow shutter speed, a quality one can clearly perceive in contemplating them.

Our gaze steadily progresses through a universal, mental landscape until reaching a moment when a glimpse of another reality, of another time scale is caught. Fact and fiction seem to fuse together in the perception of the landscape. The attention we pay to this landscape shrinks into insignificance when faced with the past of two thousand years these trees carry within them. Time, inherent to the present subject and the creative process of photography, fixes itself on top of the image, like a final, destabilizing layer of perception.