Kulter.#02

Opening Stories | 04.07.09

Comfortably lost in translation

I heard a conversation last night @ Kulter#02 between Polish artist Ewa Maziarz and Belgian fimmaker Jan Peeters. Ewa missed the point of Jan’s film because of it’s enigmatic Estonian voice-over and subtitles. Jan replied that maybe ‘missing the point’, was actually the point.

Kulter#02 was announced as an exposition about Stories. But I got comfortably lost in translation.

Peeters plays with the imagery and convention of the documentary-film in his work Parast meid tulgu voi veeuputus. Humming bees were dubbed in shots of Lotto balls and live music by the Amsterdam based band Dress.

Polish painter Ewa Maziarz showed two large drawings of ruines. For Maziarz, ruines aren’t our ancient piles of sandstone, but empty factories or deserted villages. Not your most original idea, but what makes Maziarz’ work stand out, is the multilayered approach in which, through collage, oil painting and charcoal, the viewer can look into the image rather than looking at the image.

The associative drawings of French painter Danielle Vidal read like pages of a book, blurred by spilled water: as if the story was there... not to be read.

I managed to grab some of the delicious food and filled up my glass of wine for the last time, when Dutch poet Marcel van der Drift entertained us with little stories randomly picked from his Rolodex: stalkers with amnesia, little money problems, insights in everyday (un)happiness. A lot more is to be found on his website nobodyhere.com, he told us...

We laughed and went home comfortably lost in translation.