Art Gallery - Gallery Deweer, ART Gallery, art gallery, artists exhibit, exhibit graphics, painters, photographers, sculptors, sculptures, sculpture to Otegem

Matthieu Laurette - Plight 2

23 February - 06 April 2008


In 1985 Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) presented his installation Plight in the Anthony d'Offay Gallery in London. This installation was subsequently purchased by the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The installation from the Pompidou collection is an exact reconstruction of the London installation and gallery spaces. In the former storage room of Deweer Art Gallery we are now confronted with Matthieu Laurette's Plight 2, a second reconstruction of the Paris installation especially conceived for Real Estate, his recent solo exhibition at Deweer Art Gallery. Plight 2 uses materials from the 'estate' of the closed down rug factory Deweer nv in which buildings Deweer Art Gallery is still housed. In Plight 2 rugs from the Deweer nv stock replace the wool filled felt rolls that are so iconical for the original Plight and its reconstruction. Inside Plight 2 an automatic grand piano plays The International anthem, a 1888 composition by Ghent composer Pierre De Geyter. De Geyter wrote the music for the workers from the Lille and French-Belgian boarder area. Its melody now resonates in the space where once carpets were being woven. In the original Plight the grand piano is sealed. The word 'plight' has a double meaning. It not only means'situation' or 'position', it also means 'pledge'. It is a promise for the future. With this installation, Matthieu Laurette quotes and conceptualizes the work of artists who belong to our collective cultural memory and applies it to a new cultural context.