Laurent Malherbe |2
Dutch sculptor Laurent Malherbe is a bit of an über-handyman: he effortlessly blends life and art in installations that redefine the concept of constructed realities. During his latest EKWC residency, however, Malherbe decided to scale down his buildings-in-progress to the size of a model-train decor. In the process he focussed on essentials, a bare minimum of floors and walls, a suggestion of interrupted activities as if the workers are out on their lunch break. In other works, Malherbe stays close to reality, making a plaster mould of his worn-down safety shoe and casting it in ceramics like a Van Gogh painting come to life and miraculously multiplied. Another work, a fragment of a decorative frame is executed in white chocolate – a humorous reference to Hansel and Gretel or, since this is Malherbe, a clear-cut case of home sweet home.
Guido van der Linden
For Guido van der Linden, teacher and coach at the School for Young Talent in The Hague, an EKWC residency was a return to his artistic practice and to his favourite theme of hidden or implicit presence. First, he press-moulded several large (1 meter diameter) ceramic dishes, designed to transmit the delicate sound of a heartbeat across a thirty-meter distance. Keeping them in one piece posed considerable technical problems, which only made him enjoy it more. He proceeded with a set of tiles modelled on the pavers in the street leading to his grandfather’s home. Only when these demanding works were finished, he found the space to play and experiment, throwing slabs of clay against trees in the Oisterwijk forest for instance. The results capture an absence, an empty space to indicate that something once was there.
