GERMANY - KREFELD - MUSEUM HAUS ESTERS  - KOENRAAD DEDOBBELEER - BOREDOM WON'T STARVE AS LONG AS I FEED IT
July 5 - September 27, 2009

Familiar forms of crossing table legs, drain pipes, and a plastic red drinking cup confront the visitor in 'Boredom Won't Starve as Long as I Feed It', the exhibition of artist Koenraad Dedobbeleer in Museum Haus Esters. These vaguely familiar structures and silhouettes, encountered frequently yet unobtrusively in daily life, take stage as Dedobbeleer manipulates them in unfamiliar ways. Forms rooted in everyday design are here appropriated, displaced, and re-fashioned into sculpturally and spatially oriented works. The drain pipes evolve into a sculpture fixed on the ceiling; the standard plastic cup transforms into a nickel object impossibly balanced on the floor. Taking his cue from Mies van der Rohe, Dedobbeleer presents a network of objects that inform each another and their surrounding space.

As the 2009 recipient of the Mies van der Rohe Stipend, Koenraad Dedobbeleer (*1975, Halle, Belgium) combines new site-specific works and realizes extant works anew. His presentation of art in the historically loaded space investigates the nature of displaying art. Directly engaged with Mies van der Rohe's and Lilly Reich's interior design, Dedobbeleer paints the original system for hanging paintings. In a light, matte gray the rods now course through the rooms like shadows. The shift in color acknowledges yet transforms the system's original function. Rather than a means to hang art, the system is situated as art itself.

The Mies van der Rohe Stipend was established in 1979 to promote young, promising artists and provide them a forum for international recognition in the renowned Museums Haus Lange and Haus Esters. After a gap of thirteen years the stipend and its accompanying exhibition were granted to Koenraad Dedobbeleer. A stipend of 5,000 euros will be awarded to an artist every two years.

A catalogue to accompany Koenraad Dedobbeleer's exhibition is forthcoming. 

More Information:
www.kunstmuseenkrefeld.de

Image:
Koenraad Dedobbeleer
Left: 'Never Made Significant by Virtue', 2009, cardboard, 82 x 68,5 x 68,5 cm
Right:'Assertions that Supposedly Fuse Together, Eventually', 2009, Pre-cast concrete, 40 x 58 x 105 cm
© VG-Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2009