PRESS RELEASE
JEANINE COHEN
AIME MPANE
Jeanine Cohen: Now I see you, now I don’t
When I visited the extension of the Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi one early wintry but sunny day, while it was still under construction, the work of Jeanine Cohen played hide and seek. The sun was shining bright and only by looking carefully I could see the delicate colours playing their game underneath the aluminium beams that ornate the building. When overcast the colours will reveal themselves more brightly. The fact that Jeanine Cohen got this assignment in collaboration with the architects Escaut is more than apt. As demonstrated her work is all about seeing and observing, finding the unexpected, which seems symbolic for what photography is. Although first and foremost a painter, she also has a huge interest in photography and architecture. In total one could say that her work (consisting of paintings, photographs and now this public commission) is a thorough research in the working of colour. And really that one should all consider them as paintings.
In her recent work Jeanine Cohen has shifted her attention from the canvas to the frame. Still this does not make her a sculptor, but it reveals her interest in construction and also explains how she is able to make the work at Charleroi.
The frame with Jeanine Cohen is a painting, a three-dimensional one that however never is a sculpture or an installation. It is a module that can take various forms. It could be developed in a free standing structure, but then still will stay a painting in her view and approach.
The structure of the frame is carefully deconstructed – every possible construction is researched although the basis stays rectangular. The construction comes forward from the wall, changes with each angle of vision and is also strongly affected by the quantity of light in which it is seen. A layer of colour adds to this interplay by its reflection on the wall behind the construction. The ephemeral and constructive meet as is also the case in Charleroi.
Her work is a continuous research on how we might show painting, of what painting is. The colours in her painting are “couleurs réfléchi et reflecté” that are either boxed in or liberated. The frames have become “supports” for the colours. They surround the structure and whether we see them and how depends on our attention. Thus physical fact and aesthetic experience meet. This is exactly how she as dealt with the site specific work in Charleroi. When it is finished the structure both releases and withholds its colours, plays with shadow and light, accentuates the façade of the building. It also is a painting. And it has become one with the building if not to say it has become the building.
As for the connection with architecture and photography it is interesting to know that Cohen’s work is heavily influenced by her travels and the pictures she takes when travelling, by the careful observation of the colourful architecture in Tel Aviv for example, the juxtaposition of shades and light, of round architectural forms and vegetation. Or the wide, empty Icelandic landscape and its many nuances of colour and natural structure. In fact, the way she reveals colour in her paintings is very analogous to nature – just as nature her paintings are ever-changing. It is therefore interesting that the extension of the museum looks upon a large and beautiful garden. Even though Cohen has used aluminium as a support, her work here could be seen as an answer to nature, playing a similar organic game.
Although her recent body of work seems to be light and changeable, there is as always a deep thought and observation about dimensions, internal and external relations behind it. Elements, whether the lathing of the frame or the colours, are never just simply put where they are. The same can be said of her work in Charleroi that deserves our continual careful observation and guarantees constant new discoveries.
Jeanine Cohen always wonders how to look. The lateral way of looking seems important so that one can make a connection between space and light. The surrounding space is therefore just as important as the painting, or in this case, the building, itself.
Edith Doove, April 2008
CV Jeanine Cohen
Aimé Mpane, fils de sculpteur et d’ébéniste, est né à Kinshasa en 1968. Il suit très tôt les traces paternelles et s’oriente aussi vers la peinture en suivant une formation à l’Académie des Beaux-Arts. Marqué par les modèles classiques, il gagne la Belgique en 1994, pour mieux comprendre ces modèles et mieux décoder l’art occidental. La découverte de la persistance en Europe des clichés plaqués sur l’Afrique et l’humanité noire provoque chez lui une profonde remise en question. Il va jusqu’à biffer, effacer ses toiles passées, les recouvrir de blanc. Aujourd’hui, après diverses expériences et des voyages de reconquête identitaire (La Réunion, Sénégal, Mauritanie, un retour à Kinshasa), il expérimente en Belgique des mariages entre la peinture, la série, l’installation. Lors de sa participation à L'Europe fantôme, il a présenté de petites peintures sérielles (55 x 38 cm) nommées des Afriques fantômes et une installation qui portait le titre évocateur d’Abus. Aimé Mpane s'est notamment distingué à la Biennale de Dakar en 2006, avec l'installation en allumettes et bois de caisse Congo, l’ombre de l’ombre, qui a reçu le Prix de la critique de la Fondation Blachère et qui fut accueilli au sein de l'exposition Congo en marche au Botanique, en 2007, dans le cadre de Yambi.
Mpane est un artiste polyvalent. Il pratique la peinture, la sculpture, la vidéo, la série, l’impression textile, l’installation multi-média. Devant la déchéance de l’homme sous l’empire de l’instinct de domination et de prédation, l’artiste réfléchit depuis 2003 sur la problématique de l’évolution des humains à partir de la période préhistorique. Il crée une série d’installations composées de sculptures reliées virtuellement entre elles par un cerveau dont l’évolution humaine est encore inachevée. Pour lui, l’homme d’aujourd’hui n’est encore qu’un « paléo-encéphale » qui tourbillonne dans une sorte de spirale mentale, pris d’une fièvre dévorante de possession et de conquête.
CV Aimé Mpane