After Hours

“It is the rigid mindset that forces architects to build walls, and artists to decorate them, that offends my feeling for both groups. I don’t want to create a totally new framework of vision or core.” (Gordon Matta-Clark, 1977)

Daems van Remoortere see a building and nightfall as a different perspective on a larger whole. According to them, buildings are a human construction designed to be able to withdraw from the bigger picture. The light that enters buildings through windows and doors provides the connection with the other and the outside world. Light enables us to perceive the other and the other and to feel connected. Light is a recurring element in Daems van Remoortere’s sculptures, installations and interventions in public space. It fascinates them how light is everywhere and yet seems elusive, how it penetrates somewhere, reveals new perspectives, bends, is necessary to see if when it is absent it sometimes puts us in a different mood or state of mind and makes us think. For “After Hours” Daems van Remoortere once again respond to the revealing nature of light and their urge to abstraction. Daems van Remoortere make a large incision / cutting in the facade of a building. The incision has the shape of a celestial body, the measure of the greater whole. The incision is then closed with blinds that distribute the penetrating light and thus create a new incidence of light. At the same time, they ensure that the incision is hidden from view and that an illusion of isolation is created.

‘After Hours’ is Daems van Remoortere’s tribute to iconic American artist Gordon Matta-Clark.