Portugal - Lisbon - Culturgest - Objects as friends - Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys

Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys
Objects As Friends
3 March - 19 May 2012

Belgian artists Jos de Gruyter (°1965, Geel) and Harald Thys (°1966, Wilrijk) have been working together since the end of the 1980s. Over the years, they have produced countless videos, for which they are best known, but their work also frequently includes photographs, sculptures and drawings. Seeking their inspiration in everyday reality, Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys make use of an absurd humour to construct obscure parallel worlds inhabited by intriguing characters, thereby offering a merciless (and caricatural) portrait of the human condition.

At the end of 2009, Culturgest unveiled the work of these artists through an exhibition composed of two videos, a set of clay sculptures and a small series of black and white photographs. Two and a half years later, Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys are now exhibiting at the Culturgest Gallery in Porto a series of 176 colour photographs, strange compositions of everyday objects, captured against a grey background and under a harsh light, with which, in their own very particular way (reminiscent of some of the photographic series of the Swiss duo Fischli / Weiss), they venture into the genre of still life. This exhibition is organised in association with Kestnergesellschaft, in Hanover, and Muzée, in Ostend.

Curator: Miguel Wandschneider

More info: www.culturgest.pt