A Matter of Fact

Exhibition november 17 – December 14 2007

Frank Halmans
Tijmen Hauer
Annja Krautgrasser
Eelco van der Lingen
Josh Müller
Lynn Pook
Oscar Stegehuis
Edd Vossen

A Matter Of Fact is a collaborative project that explores the visual and textual dialogue of true reality.Through our sensory system, a common agreement of reality has been established as a basis for ‘reality’, yet it is also our sensory system that has obscured our perception and supposition. The fragile construction of the human mind is biased with emotions, psychological subjectivity and the short termism of our senses, and is hardly an apposite for defining the world around us.

It has been considered that the mind is capable of processing  only a fraction of universal information and its meaning within the constraints of a lifetime. Yet in spite of this, our combined cerebral number relieves this limitation, and together we bring about and organize segments of information, nevertheless, the real can become misplaced and a rationale of the reproduction of information is formed to profile a subliminal,  and resolute reality.

This in itself creates dialogue on the discourse of reality and our subjection to the vicissitude of the world around us. So when reality and fact are no longer feasible, the conception of new realities or the construction, distortion and breaking of the spectral silence of reality can be a refreshing observation.
By altering our reality or by illusion, we can have some respite to that arduous task of understanding what this world really is about, and to believe in the impossible.

It is at this juncture that the concept of ‘A Matter a Fact’ comes into play; providing some release in the alternative realities, allowing the artists to confront, and challenge psychological spaces that are suffused with alternative meaning through their medium to the viewer.

‘A Matter a Fact’ uses diverse artistic vocabulary to investigate and interpret true reality through a line up of exhibitions by eight artists, and various events that include a symposium, an artist-in-residence stop and show and tell evenings.

The inquiry into the theme facilitates to create and provoke the consciousness of the artists, and what is more, promotes a continued experience for the audience. The different nationalities of the artists further illustrate both their divergences and similarities, on the denotations of a world that is considered real.

The lectures by Hans Aarsman and Dick Mesland, and the open ‘show and tell’ generate a forum for communication with the audience group that require a broader discourse around the theme. Whilst engagements with fellow artists widen the communication between the presenting artists and the artists from The Hague, it also encourage s the meeting of creative professionals from the Dutch, English and German Art worlds, and concomitantly expands  their expertise and theoretical scope.

Whether through the creation of simulacra, the investigation of “the frame” or the deconstruction of the potent images portrayed by mass media, the artists participating in “A matter of fact” investigate, explore and expand on realities commonly agreed on.

From a realist perspective, the world is a definite set of facts that is obtained independently of humans. Yet, in many ways one could argue that reality is subject to a continuous process of negotiation, or even the result of a democratic process. This consensus reality can be “enforced” through various means used against those who challenge it or be subject to permanent challenges that will be incorporated in our shared reality in one way or another.