Hans Op de Beeck: Pino Pascali Award - XX edition

Hans Op de Beeck is the winner of this year’s 20th edition of the Pino Pascali Award. The jury – which included Rosalba Branà, director of the Museum Pino Pascali, Danilo Eccher, art critic and curator, and Daniela Ferretti, director of Palazzo Fortuny – has identified in the poetic expression of the Belgian artist similarities with the “pascalian approach” through multiple forms of communication and contamination that range from sculpture to painting, video, theatre, music, photography and scenography.
On September 30th during the opening of the exhibition, the new video Hans Op de Beeck, The Girl, 2017, will be presented to the public for the first time. This is a slow, suggestive, perception-oriented animated film (22′) in which the viewer is transported to the strange world of a silent, 14-year-old girl. An original soundtrack for the film was composed by Tom Pintens, on a text by the artist. Six sculptures will also be exhibited: Lauren (small version), 2017, Lucas (small version), 2017, Vanitas Table (4), 2016, Fatima, 2016, Christmas, 2006, Table (1), 2006.
Hans Op de Beeck’s complex installations portray life as the place where one’s self is lost, where existence is perceived as precarious. The universal concepts of life and death are dealt with subtle Flemish irony and veiled melancholy and touch on men’s deepest feelings.
The key-words to understand Hans Op de Beeck’s works are: meditation, silence, introspection. Some of his monumental installations are full scale and made of soft, grey plaster. The result is an image of people and objects turned into grey stone, a sort of contemporary Pompei, metaphysical and still.
Hans Op de Beeck is a visual artist, playwright, composer, opera and theatre director. Therefore, his artistic research encompasses different tools and communication techniques and his works wonder about the complexities of our society and ponder on universal issues. The artist believes that men can stage the world around them as a tragicomedy. Hans Op de Beeck excites the viewers’ senses by offering moments of wonder, silence and introspection.