bio

Bio:

Cel Crabeels makes use of audio-visual media to explore the phenomena of identification, documentation, historization and the artistic use of them. At the same time the artist propagates a critical, self-reflective distance towards this issues. The videos, audio-visual installations, documentary projects and photographs Cel Crabeels brings forth reveal a fascination for obscuring the divisions between representation and reality, fiction and documentary, private and public, critical observation and autobiography. Early works revolved around the existence and persistence of unspoken rules and codes, imposing, obeying or violating limits and norms.

Studies:

Cel Crabeels was artist/researcher at the Fine Art department of the Jan van Eyck Academie, post-academic institute for research and production in the fields of fine art, design, and theory from 1997 to 1999. He is PhD candidate (Doctoraat in de Kunsten) at the University of Leuven Belgium. He is a member of INTERFACE , an academic platform that investigates the interfaces between art and science. It aims to define, confirm and extend the creative undercurrents and critical content involved.
 
His artwork is been exhibited in many museums, art venue's and galleries throughout Europe and America (American University Museum, Katzen Art Centre, Washington DC, US, Museum Ludwig-Forum Fur Internationale Kunst, Aachen, MuHKA, Antwerp, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Witte De With, Rotterdam, MIT Visual Arts Center, Boston). Crabeels has lectured at Leeds Metropolitan University, Academy of the Arts Antwerp, Academy of the Arts Reykjavik, Sint-Lukas Academie Brussels, HISK Ghent, HISK Antwerp, KASK Gent, University Ghent and Post Sint Joost, Breda.

cv

Solo and Group Exhibitions (selection) 

2009

'Dance for the Camera', Chicago Arts Centre, Chicago (USA)
'ERROR # 14: INTO THE LIGHT', Error One, Antwerp (Belgium)
'NEXT', The Invitational Exhibition of Emerging Art, Chicago (USA)
'Plaisir d'Offrir (group show)', Dagmar De Pooter Gallery, Antwerp (Belgium)
'AIACE- IINVIDEO', A.I.A.C.E., Milan (Italy)   

2008

'About Spare Time And Slower Worlds', American University Museum, Katzen Art Center, Washington D.C. (USA)
Roxy/Nod, Prague (Czech Republic)
'Here Today, Gone Tomorrow', FST Forward>>,  Antwerp (Belgium)
'Landing 2008', Dagmar de Pooter Galerie, Antwerp (Belgium)

2007

'Voltes-Faces', 20.exground filmfest, Wiesbaden (Germany) 
'Markers Vi-Divine In.Tent', ArtLife Contemporary Events, Venice (Italy)
'Markers Vi - The Artists Museum', Unternehmenspark, Kassel (Germany)
'Vitrineproject 8', De Garage, Mechelen (Belgium)
'One Day', Extra City at Brussels Art Fair, Brussels (Belgium)
'Paulo Post Futurum', Breda's Museum, Breda (The Netherlands)
'VIDEOWEEKEND-Focus On CEL CRABEELS', Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht (The Netherlands)
'Speeltijd', Koninklijk Atheneum Berchem, Antwerp (Belgium)
'Dionysian Duty', Mezkalito Gallery, London (United Kingdom)
'Videozone-3', s.l., Tel Aviv (Israel)

2006

'Videozone 3', s.l., Tel Aviv (Israel)
'Frictievenster', Vooruit, Gent (Belgium)
'Panoramic', Be-part, Waregem (Belgium)
'Dots', s.l., Sint Niklaas (Belgium)
'What Are You Doing?', MuHKA Media, Antwerpen (Belgium)

2005

'Monopolis', Witte De With, Centrum Voor Hedendaagse Kunst Rotterdam (The Netherlands)
'Body Stroke – Body Walks', s.l., Brugge (Belgium)
'The European Platform For Contemporary Art', Art Brussels, Brussels (Belgium)
'Roadmovies', Muhka_Media, Antwerpen (Belgium)
'Missies, Ik Weet Wat Goed Voor U Is', De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
'Figures Of The Body', Laznia Centre For Contemporary Art, Gdansk (Poland)

2004

'Nearly present just past 2004', Middelheimmuseum, Antwerp (Belgium)
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (Spain)
'Aldrei -Nie -Never', Listasafn, Reykjavic (Iceland)

2003

'Reflecting upon virtual Violence', TENT International filmfestival Rotterdam, Rotterdam (The Netherlands)
'Just Stand There', MIT List visual art center, Boston (USA)
'SWITCH', Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle (Belgium)
'In The Line Of Work', Argos - Black Box, Brussels (Belgium)

2002

'a Riddle', Parktriennale, Zoersel (Belgium)
'Outplacement', Art Basel artpoint, Miami Beach (USA)

2001

'This Is The Place', s.l., Antwerp (Belgium)

2000

'House of Games', 16th Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht (The Netherlands)
'Orbis Terrarum', Museum Plantijn Moretus, Antwerp (Belgium)
'The Waiting Room', contemporary project space, Minneapolis (USA)
'Movements', Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp (Belgium)

1999

Leeds Metropolitan Univ.Gallery & The Henry Moore Foundation, Leeds (United Kingdom)

1998

Maatschappij voor oude en nieuwe media, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)

1994

Museum Ludwig-Forum Fur Internationale Kunst, Aachen (Germany)

1992

Vereniging van het Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst, Ghent (Belgium)
'Woord en Beeld', Museum of contemporary art MuHKA, Antwerp (Belgium)
'Imaginary Homelands', Christopher Leonard Gallery, New York (USA)

biblio

1999

  • Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht (The Netherlands)

works

 

Landing

videoinstallation, double projection, 60 min. 'Panoramic', Be-Part

 

Slave-Unit

Video, colour, non spoken, 39'
Prod: Cel Crabeels / Viktor vzw / Museum MDD Gent
'Slave unit' is a notion which indicates the status of network equipment. In photography it denotes the power of flash installations; a distinction is always made between dominant and subjected. In the video by Cel Crabeels the idea is applied to a setting with two dancers, a director, the camera, video equipment, the stage and the audience. The work constitutes a cross-over between a dance performance, a photoscope and a video installation. A man and a woman photograph each other in turns, precisely when the camera's 'slave unit' flashes. The photographer/ hunter turns into a model/ slave and vice versa. Simultaneously the image literally turns around as well, building on the principle of reversibility. On various levels the work comments the individual in his mediatized environment.

 

Lied, chanson, song

Video, colour, song, 12'00"
Story of her own life, in improvised, rhyming phrases. Echoes from another age, language mosaics from an animated past receive an anachronous echo through added electronic sound collages, as a collision of time, memory and sound. The music is by Stefaan Vinckevleugel.

 

Topologic

Video, colour, sound, 14'/15'
We see a man in a three-piece suit standing against an equally grey background. Everything exudes the pedestrian, to such an extent that it looks as if there is nothing to be seen. But then the man begins to make rather extraordinary movements and even later it becomes clear that he is attempting to take off the waistcoat without taking off his jacket. After a long struggle he eventually succeeds in doing this marvelously by applying the same agility that women come up with when they want to take of their bra without having to take of all of their clothes. An interchange takes place between male and female, and moreover also between the gesture and its mirror image when this gesture is repeated in reverse. This turning around itself, the works with reversals and opposites, is a typical characteristic of Crabeels' recent work.

 

Outplacement

Video, colour, sound, 54'/60'
Cel Crabeels explicitly tackles the issues of the area surrounding the St. Jan's square. He visits the itinerary between the Fabiola Hall and the Sint Jan's square almost on a daily basis, making contact with the people he meets on his way. He invites them to make a video portrait in the underground parking garage where he has built a studio for the occasion. The parking acts as a white, neutral and 'interchangeable' space in which people are removed from their familiar environment. They are 'de-contextualised' like migrants and refugees. He registers how the area has gained a new stimulus through the refurbishments of the square, but also how part of its memory has been lost. His work is about the (im)possibility to compensate for or register this loss.

 

Red Tape

Video, colour, sound, 12'/78'
Red tape stuck in straight lines on the floor, ceiling and walls creates an hermetically closed route through them. Two camera movements follow this line, one as an intact circuit and the other as its dismantling. This marking with tape can be seen as the equatorial contraction of an inner space.

 

Leeds tape

Video, colour, sound, 10'/66'
The people who move through Leeds seem to have a purpose, they are going somewhere. The artist chose not to. He carried out interventions at various times and places in the public space of the city. They became slightly disturbing when obstructing the natural flow of people, things and situations. The footage of these actions is produced into a video, showing the interventions and the response they provoke. It was part of a project focussing itself around the question what constitutes a cultural infrastructure in the city of Leeds.

documentation

 

Cel Crabeels

º1958, Brecht (B)
T: 03/289.44.21
E: cel.crabeels@telenet.be
Van Trierstraat 46
2018 Antwerpen, België

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