Ann Veronica Janssens Solo Exhibition

Exhibition Venue: Kamel Mennour Gallery, Paris | Exhibition Dates: May 16 to June 22 | Text and Photos by Chen Chi-Hsiang

Ann Veronica Janssens (born 1956) is one of the most prestigious younger artists in the current European art scene. Her exploration is grounded in real sensory experience, through diverse investigations: sculpture, objects, projection, environmental space, installation, urban participation, etc. The artist says: “I am interested in what disappears from my side; not to capture this passing away, but rather to express the ungraspable. In my work, there are rarely objects. It is all about behavioral participation, loss of control, commitment and provision like active experiences.” (Note 1)

Recently, in two important thematic group exhibitions—the dramatic “Light Show” in London, UK, and the grand Op Art 1913-2013 exhibition titled “Dynamo” at the Grand Palais in Paris—her extraordinary works using light projection were seen. The London piece was English Pink (2006), and the Paris piece was French Blue (2007), both created by focusing seven projection lamps onto painted, blurred environmental spaces. In Paris, there were also two dramatic works, Purple and Turquoise (2000), constructed through halogen projection, expressing sensibility and atmosphere between soft hues and color perception. Another piece was even more captivating: in a closed space filled with thick pale blue mist, people disappear into the floating space upon entering, unable to see their hands, losing direction, unsure of where they are or if anyone or anything else is nearby, lost in the dense fog, not knowing what to do, sometimes bumping into each other unknowingly. This dramatically allows people to experience a new mind-body experience.

In this gallery solo exhibition, there is also such a work, but with warm pink-pale blue-pale purple slowly alternating mists in a small-scale space. The floor is slippery; relying on perception, I had to follow the wall to move forward, witnessing an alternative bodily experience of contemporary art—physical and psychological, sensation and imagination, action and consciousness. This kind of mist space installation began in 1997 with the first work in Anvers, Belgium. After 2000, white mist became a warm, confusing color, appearing uniquely at the National Museum in Berlin under the title “Blue.red and yellow.”

In her first solo exhibition in Paris, there were four objects. On the ground of the main space, a slender “I” made of IPE steel spans across; its surface is bright as a mirror, reflecting the surrounding environment and conversing with the space, highlighting illusoryvirtual and real between physical and psychological, imagination and consciousness. In another space, two transparent square long columns stand clear on the ground. Water inside the transparent columns presents visually in two layers. The transparent columns capture light from all directions, conversing with it, presenting different changes depending on the viewer’s angle, full of visuality. In the center stands a square glass aquarium, divided into two layers or one transparent and one opaque layer depending on the visual angle. A thick yellow layer floats on the water above; below, it sometimes acts like a mirror, creating a magical image effect. Between disappearing and appearing, like a prism, between reality and imagination, visible and invisible, appearing and vanishing, physical and psychological, material and immaterial—it is full of visual effects.

The artist says: “These involve triggering experiences of limitation, transcendence, and excess, in wonderful, lingering, permeating, dizzying, rapid, and exhausted situations. These are what I am interested in, because they allow people to organize visions around the only uncertain, fleeting, physical, and psychological images.” (Note 2)

Note 1: Wall quote from Ann Veronica Janssens at the Grand Palais exhibition titled “Dynamo,” Paris, France. Note 2: Cette citation de l'artiste est extraite de Ann Veronica Janssens 8’26’’, par Nathalie Ergino, Anne Pontégnie, Ann Veronica Janssens, ENSBA / MAC, Paris, 2004.