Deweer Gallery exists 34 years now. During the first years of its existence, the gallery was an exceptional role-model in the large region of Southwest Flanders in terms of unlocking international visual art. The gallery further consolidated this role within the context of the broad social interest in contemporary art, fuelled by the seminal 1986 exhibition ‘Chambres d’ Amis’ in Ghent. Deweer Gallery gained reputation and fame through intelligent exhibitions, based on an instinctive but fine selection of willful artists, and accompanied by publications.

The gallery was and still is located in the rural Otegem, away from the culturally more dynamic big cities, thus offering artists and visitors more time and oxygen to work and watch. This selection of 34 works of art is a razor-sharp cut through time, in which art is shown as what it will always be: the fixed shadow of time. It is time that judges, it is time that gives art a date; art is determined by time and not by ‘individual expressions of private emotions’ as my generations’ schoolbooks dictate. This exhibition, with works from the gallery’s stock, dogs time, and the forms of aesthetic on display here are allowed into (art)history based on vague criteria. Sometimes it’s endearing to see the no-longer-new again, sometimes it’s embarrassing, sometimes the relevance of a work of art surfaces only after many years. Art navigates within and between the cultural trends and fixes the ‘Zeitgeist’.

Within, yet physically outside the presentation, and framed, as it were, in a three-dimensional passepartout, is the triptych from the recent series ‘Learning from Qatar’ (2011-2013) by Jan De Cock. A desolate atmosphere, as in a landscape of Michelangelo Antonioni, pervades this series. The apparent emptiness contrasts with the country’s wealth of raw materials. Qatar is lured towards lucrative cultural mass-tourism; the regime massively and eagerly buys Western contemporary art and puts it in perfectly air-conditioned palaces for art that reflect and appropriate Western taste. The photos from the series ‘Learning from Qatar’ render the impression that Jan De Cock had during his tours in the country. The images reflect on the industry and urbanization, both advancing into the desert which serves as a white, neutral backdrop against a bright blue sky, sharply delineating the banal architecture, the archaeological sites, the objects and the crisp colors.

The economy is globalized and is easily relocated, as is art. The countryside no longer exists, Otegem is on the edge of rurality.

Luk Lambrecht