Nicolás Lamas, Ball, 2013 Rubber and felt. Courtesy the artist and Meessen De Clercq, Brussels
Nicolás Lamas
Reference Points
8 November – 7 December 2013
at Meessen De Clercq, Brussels
Shown for the first time in a solo exhibition in Europe, Nicolás LAMAS (b.1980) occupies the first floor of the gallery. The work of the young Peruvian artist based in Belgium is based on a process reflection about space, time, culture and science. Exploring different scientific fields such as astronomy or physics, Lamas formalizes his questioning using various media, playing on codes of monstration, comparing objects which seem a priori to be opposites, to elicit meaning and drama. This investigation, sometimes taken to absurd lengths, undermines measurement systems that govern our daily lives and literally challenges the exhibition space. An obvious example is visible with Partial View. This work, consisting of a rock and a scanner, highlights the meeting of two heterogeneous elements, the relationship between actual weight and the virtual weight of a scanned image, the impossibility of understanding an object if one only considers the surface of things … As in many works, the artist opens up various issues here and creates multiple opportunities for reading his works. Not without humour, Lamas uses familiar objects, and either reveals or misappropriates their inherent familiarity. From the ping pong net which “defines the void” (Boundary), to the golf ball which has passed through the thickness of a wall (Alignment) or the rubber die of a ball stuck under a floor board (Interaction between two spaces) Lamas examines the energy contained in familiar objects while removing their intrinsic value. He destabilizes the visitor by changing the meaning of many reference points: dice are used in woven constellations (Constellations) or are sanded down to a point where they become planets on a cutting mat (Pebbles). These shifts are an important part of the work process that Lamas develops, who sets up the exhibition to establish an intimate conversation between each piece, giving the whole a tremendous consistency. He creates a world crammed with possibilities, creating permanent interactions, ellipses, attractions and repulsions, inversions between horizontality and verticality, incompatibilities between vacuum and matter, distortions of logic. From one piece to another, Lamas develops a meticulous network weaving a thread between each of them, which ultimately enables a system to find its own balance within imbalance.
Meessen De Clercq
Abdijstraat 2a Rue de l’Abbaye
1000 Brussels, Belgium
meessendeclercq.be
Opening hours
Tuesday – Saturday: 11h00 – 18h00
Nicolás Lamas, Pebbles (blue version), 2013. Courtesy the artist and Meessen De Clercq, Brussels
Nicolás Lamas, Constellations (1), 2013 Print on Hahnemüle paper. Courtesy the artist and Meessen De Clercq, Brussels
Nicolás Lamas, Interaction between two spaces, 2013. Courtesy the artist and Meessen De Clercq, Brussels
Nicolás Lamas, Exhibition view of Reference Points, 2013. Courtesy the artist and Meessen De Clercq, Brussels
Nicolás Lamas, Exhibition view of Reference Points, 2013. Courtesy the artist and Meessen De Clercq, Brussels
Nicolás Lamas, Exhibition view of Reference Points, 2013. Courtesy the artist and Meessen De Clercq, Brussels