Els Dietvorst

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"I am going to take you on a tour through my work. It will be a story tour because stories are what link us as humans. Stories make us exist, make us connect through time and space." 

Els Dietvorst (°1964) is a socially engaged artist. She uses dialogue, experiment and intuition as her main artistic strategies. Ever since the 1990s, she has been moved by social issues such as migration, racism and climate change. Dietvorst reflects on the human condition. As a result, major themes such as life and death, anxiety, alienation and desire are addressed in her work. She focuses particularly on the position of the outsider,  pointing her gaze to/aiming her attention at those people and events that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Her choice of medium, whether it be actions, documentaries, films, mud sculptures, installations, drawings or theater texts, depends on the specific circumstances and the individual nature of each project. Many of her artworks have therefore been given away or destroyed, or have perished.

In 2020, many of these works were remade again for the exhibition *Dooltocht/A desperate quest to find a base for hope at M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp). She is currently researcher on a PhD: "Partisans of the Real" at the Royal Academy / University of Antwerp. 

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Els Dietvorst

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(c)Els Dietvorst - photo: M HKA, 2019
No Shooting, 2000
Els Dietvorst, Orla Barry , Jan Braet
Book , 16.5 x 20 cm
ink on paper

One day this summer I thought I might have something to say, I didn't get to it till December, but anyway as Clem would say...

I decided to write about the drawings, and I've been circling them ever since.

These are the results of the conversations I started with Els's drawings on a miraculously sunny day in December after my first winter swim in the Irish Sea. The very same day my cousin Geoffry tried to shoot one of my precious pheasants, even though he said it was a wild duck. I know Els would prefer me to begin by writing about a pigeon, but she'll come around to pheasants one day, if we ever get out this blasted city...

I think every other conversation happened in the dreary days of January and February within the confines of my room within the confines of the European Capital that is BRU-X-ELLES.

The drawings talked to me in a strangely familiar way, which is to be expected I suppose as I seem to be living with them. Anyway I talked back sometimes responding, sometimes smothering them which you are allowed to do living in such close proximity, you understand... 

 

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