“The spectacle will be in the picture”: the photographer shares the beautiful and haunting photographs that will fill the Belgian pavilion from this weekend
from the series 27.1 / 21.7 / 010 – 014 / 2014© Dirk Braeckman / Courtesy of Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp
It’s easy to lose yourself in the act of looking when you’re in front of an image by Dirk Braeckman. There’s an energy reverberating in the darkness of his photographs that draws you into another dimension – where the eyes simultaneously linger over the surface of the image and orbit around the emerging contours of objects, scenes and bodies that seem to possess lives of their own. For a moment, the allure of these mysterious details offers a much-needed mental detour from the stories we tell ourselves.
Braeckman is representing Belgium at the 57th Venice Biennale with a new series of monumental photographic prints, all of them black and white and on baryta paper. Born in Eeklo, Belgium, the Ghent-based photographer shoots only analogue, and always showcases his images unglazed and uncovered. Without any physical interference, the eye can directly wander along the ridges, fissures and fragments of enigmatic forms, diverting attention from any particular narrative. After all, Braeckman is not interested in crafting narratives, abiding to a specific theme nor capturing reality in his work, the artist is adamant on creating an atmosphere. “I’m not a storyteller, I’m an imagemaker,” he tells AnOther. “The story is made in the mind of the viewer.”
Read on at anothermag.com
