Brody Neuenschwander at Quest21/ Brussels Belgium
Brody Neuenschwander (Houston, Texas 1958) is a text artist whose work investigates the boundaries between text and image. To this end he employs an endless range of writing and drawing techniques, as well as sculpture, painting and new media.
Neuenschwander has worked for over twenty years with Peter Greenaway on films (Prospero’s Books and The Pillow Book), operas (Writing to Vermeer, Columbus) and installations (Bologna Towers 2000, One Hundred Objects to Represent the World).
His own work includes many impressive international projects, such as the installation SKIN (with music by Jeroen D’hoe) and the calligraphic performance A Brush with Silence, both held in the Memling/Sint Jan Museum in Bruges in 2007. A Brush with Silence was also held in the Belfort of Ghent in 2009.
Recently Neuenschwander (together again with Jeroen D’hoe) opened an audio-visual installation in and on the Cathedral of St. Rombout in Mechelen. The work, which consists of a laser installation on the roof of the building and a soundscape with video in the top chamber of the tower, is based on the eight-fold division of time announced by the bell tower’s carillon. In the video, which is projected into the oculus of the Askelder, the tower’s highest chamber, a solitary figure battles with the force of gravity and the weight of an enormous blank book in a seemingly hopeless effort to conquer an existential space in the universe. The libretto for the soundscape is by D’hoe, and is based on eight tower poems Neuenschwander composed for this project. In this vast project the interior and exterior of a major Gothic building are brought back into a process of questioning man’s place in the cosmos.
As in all his work, the Mechelen installation manifests Neuenschwander’s fascination with the construction of belief systems, systems in which the written and printed work, the body writing and the body written upon play a central role.
Neuenschwander’s work includes paintings, drawings, collages and sculpture.
A selection of recent work can be seen at Quest21 in Brussels from 7 May, 2009.
From May 1 to June 14 work by Brody Neuenschwander can also be seen in the group show ‘Voices across the Plain’, organised by Quest21 in the PM Gallery & House, Ealing, London.
Quest 21
Avenue Stalingrad 21, 1000 Brussels
Open on Thursday, Friday, Saturday from 12-6pm and by appointment
Contact www.quest21-art.be; mobile +32. (0)473.81.36.90
Also view www.bnart.be