2_2_DiscoverBenelux_11_November_2014_Q9_Scan Magazine 1 06/11/2014 23:09 Page 73 Discover Benelux | Mini Theme | Art
Artist collective Py Verde often create art using the public sites of the city they live in, Brussels
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Public Art in Brussels TEXT: HEALTHER WELSH | PHOTOS: PY VERDE
Artist collective Py Verde makes work that addresses the temporalities and changing nature of our surroundings. Comprised of French artist Géraldine Py and Roberto Verde from Italy, the collective lives and works in Brussels; often, their works exist in public spaces as videos, installations or performance pieces. They use the city as their canvas to make viewers rethink the sites they pass by every day, without a second thought. The duo wish to reach out to members of the public; “we believe in a social, useful role for the artist himself,” states Verde, and explains that they see their work as part of a bigger picture, a global conversation. Their art is often about the processes objects go through, and, focusing on these transitions, each piece has its own life span. The artists arrange materials from clothes to pieces of pipe or metal, in ways that highlight their specific materiality. Py adds that in using these materials, they are referencing the physics, chemistry or biology of their very being, questioning their existence
leries like Wiels, Argos and Bozar, and of course, the wonderful Belgian beer.
and the possibility of any chance encounters they may have. Influenced by key movements such as land art and minimalism, key figures from writer Samuel Beckett to musician John Cage are also among their sources of inspiration. Verde also mentions artists Peter Fischli, David Weiss, Joseph Beuys and directors Federico Fellini, Ettore Scola and Werner Herzog. The duo settled in Brussels because of its central location, and they soon learned about the capital’s other benefits too, from the growing young underground art scene with artist-led spaces like Coffre-Fort, to cheap rent and exciting exhibitions. Py also references the city’s great range of gal-
A key piece for Py Verde entitled Abusive Construction, from 2011, plays with the possibility of builders using their work site in domestic ways. They turned a crane on a construction site in Brussels into a clothesline. Documentation of this amusing sight shows the extreme height at which the clothes were hung and also shifts the viewer’s relationship with the backdrop in surprising ways. Taking more opportunities to use the city’s public landscape, Py Verde is now planning an ambitious public installation involving “water turbulences, an installation with living cockroaches, a video with rats, and a big installation depicting the four seasons, where materials will be transformed and living forms will appear” says Py. Catch their current work during the Lux exhibition at the Fresnoy Art Center in Tourcoing in France (near the Belgian border) until 4 January 2015.
Issue 11 | November 2014 | 73