No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
John Donne
- Meditation XVII (1624)
Stigter Van Doesburg is proud to present the first solo exhibition of Lucas Lenglet at the gallery. No man is an island is focussed around fear of the other. All works are an effort to expel that what we see as being different. They make use of the strategy of repetition to undo the parts of which they are composed of from their literal meaning in order to create a more metaphorical one. Most of the works are based on found elements that relate to the other. Newspapers, bells, telephone books… Basic things to communicate, but nowadays they look quite archaic. In our digital era Lenglet is using them on purpose: sometimes the past says more about the present than the present does. On the verge of being displaced, but at the same time they have hinted towards timelessness.
The works at the gallery are based on repetition in such a way that the original meaning is fading. What does a horseshoe tell you about luck when you see eighty-eight of them hanging in a grid? Also the work ‘Body (FD)’ and ‘Body (NRC)’ are far out from their original function. Lenglet used different newspaper clippings and placed them underneath each other. In this way only fragments are visible and no coherent story can be read. The hopelessness of all information that is coming daily to us covered as minimalist aesthetics.
The works at the gallery relate to Lenglets older works in the way that they are still based on accessibility, on thought about inclusion and exclusion. For the work ‘Others’ Lenglet framed twelve books with photos of ethnographical portraits as one piece. Faces from Oceania, Indo Chine and South America are looking at us from behind the glass. The idea that you can’t turn the pages anymore, makes them even more the others than they already are.
Fear of the other is an actual issue in today’s society. No man is an island questions social interaction as such. Will the others stay the others, no matter what art can do? Despite the title, we might stay individuals thinking about the others while watching one of Lenglet’s compelling works.
